THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson
trick if he could help it. At the first sign of treachery he was determined to shoot. He heard the creak of a door on rusty hinges as she pushed it back and released his hand from hers with a sudden jerk.
A thin light filtered out and he beheld a wretchedly furnished room with something lying on a mattress in the farther corner. He advanced cautiously, weapon ready. She pushed the door to and his pistol dropped as he saw the haggard, unshaven face of the sleeping man on the mattress. A man who turned restlessly at their entrance.
She pointed to the corner. "There you are, Mr. Hallett. That's my brother, James Errol. You have his life in your hands if you want to fetch the police."
Chapter XIX
She faced him by the thin light of the cheap oil lamp, her head defiantly tilted. He remained dumb, the pistol dangling by his side till he became conscious of the incongruity and replaced it in his pocket. The sudden spectacle of the sick man lying there in that miserable hovel had shorn him for the moment of the power of consecutive thought.
She lifted the lamp to examine the sleeping man and, replacing it on the table, readjusted a pillow with tender fingers. She rose and pushed forward a rickety chair. He complied with the unspoken invitation.
"He is a fugitive from justice." She spoke softly lest the sleeper be disturbed. "Whatever he is, scoundrel though you think him, can I do less? But for me he would have been helpless. Would you have me desert him? Do you think "she made a gesture of disgust "that I like living in this place these two sordid rooms which are the only place in London I could hide him in? Why, I daren't even have a doctor for fear of betrayal. And you thought that I was in league with the people who brought him to this. Well I am in league. They know where he is and a single word would bring the police down here."
The fire in her low tone challenged him to still condemn her. Once before he had reasoned out a theory of her attitude a theory that had partly been broken down by the open scepticism of Menzies until the culminating point had been reached when he found her dining with Ling. At first the apparent significance of that had been lost, but it had been borne upon him with ever-increasing force that it was evidence that the letter luring him to Gwennie Lyne's house was no forgery but deliberately written by her. Now again he had to go back to the old line of reasoning. He wondered that he had permitted anything to throw him off it. Why, it was plain to the most dense intellect. Who so likely to pay off the old score of hatred of his father by a bullet than this mean, reckless waster, Errol.
"It was he who killed Mr. Greye-Stratton?" he whispered hoarsely.
Her reply was inaudible. But the drawn face, the twitching hands left it in no doubt.
Without warning the man on the pallet raised himself on one elbow, his features ghastly in the dim light.
"Who says I killed him?" he gasped in a cracked voice. "It's a lie a lie, I tell you. Who's that you've got there, Peggy? Damn this light. I can't see. Tell him it's a lie an infernal lie. I never laid a finger on the old man old man old man old devil!" He gasped out the last word with shrill vindictiveness and fell back breathless.
She hurriedly lifted a small bottle from the mantelpiece, poured a little of the contents into a glass, and supported her brother's head while he drank, talking soothingly to him the while. In a little while his regular breathing told that he was asleep.
"I think you had better go now," she said brokenly. "I don't know why I should have brought you here why it should matter to me what you think. You have seen and you are at liberty to believe what you like."
"Don't let us talk nonsense," he said briskly. "I begin to see that I have acted like a blackguard, but I can't leave you like this." He rose, crossed over to her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "You have trusted me with the most important thing. Now you must trust me fully. You need a friend and whether you like it or not I am going to see this through. Where's the other room you spoke of? Let's go in there and talk."
With a glance at her brother she lit a candle and led him to the adjoining room, as poorly furnished as the other. "I can't offer you even a cup of tea, Mr. Hallett," she said with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness. "There is no gas and the fires are out."
"I don't mind defects in hospitality," he said. "They can be remedied some other time. Now tell me how it all came about and we'll see what's to be done."
She paused as though to put her thoughts into form. "You wondered why I never told you I was married," she said wearily. "It is true, all that you know. I am married to that man "a shudder swept her slim frame "Ling. If there is any living thing that I detest, hate, and despise it is he. I want you to believe it, Mr. Hallett, when I say that I am his wife only in name. Never! Never!" he could see her face glow with her vehemence in the candle light "shall I be anything more. He was a friend of my brother's he had a hold on him, and to save him I consented to a marriage. It was a marriage of form and we separated at the registry office. Not even for my brother could I do more."
"This was before the death of your father?"
"Yes."
"Then it was Ling who knew he had committed forgery? It was he who held the threat of exposure over your head. The price you paid was marriage?"
"That was part of the price. I thought it would silence him to have me bear the same name as himself. It was he who came to my flat the night of the murder with the forged cheques in his hand and demanded the full price of his silence that I should take my place as his wife."
Jimmie bit his lip. He promised himself there should be a reckoning if ever he ran across Ling again.
"Then the murder took place. It was not difficult for me to guess what had happened when I read of it and I spent a terrible hour. I knew that the detectives would soon learn enough to put them on the track and that at any moment they might seek me out. So I went to them, partly because I was anxious to see what they knew, partly because I knew suspicion might be aroused if I seemed to avoid them. You know more or less what happened. Then I was brought up for you to indentify me and I confess I had an anxious few minutes while you were walking up and down that line of women. I knew you had recognised me and when you denied it to the officers I could I could have done anything for you.
"I hadn't a single friend in whom I could confide and then you appeared. I told you more much more than I intended to and when you urged me to give the police full details I was half tempted to comply. But it seemed too great a risk to take. If there was any doubt if there had seemed any doubt about my brother.
How could I? To have told the police would have been to betray him.
"I realised how desperate things were when I knew I was being shadowed and you stopped the detectives. I hurried back to my flat and outside in the street I met Ling. I had neither the chance nor the desire to avoid him. ' I have been running great risks to see you,' he said. ' You must come with me at once. Your brother is hurt.'
"I distrusted him and my suspicion must have shown itself. He let me see plainly that he knew the truth, and he added that my brother was lying injured at a house in the East End. ' He is nothing to me,' he added. ' He can die there like a dog in a kennel or the police can patch him up for another dog's death. There is the address.' He pushed a scrap of paper into my hand and went away without another word.
"If he had offered to accompany me I fear I should not have come. He must have known that. He was astute enough to understand that once I came here he could see me whenever he wanted. I found my brother as you have seen him. He was suffering from a knife thrust in the ribs which he told me was due to an accident. He was in great pain and I did not question him too much. Someone had bandaged it up, and the old woman below the landlady of this house was watching him. He had been brought here by two other men, she said. She did not know anything about him, how he had been injured nor who the people were who brought him. They had taken the two rooms and told her a lady would come to look after him. She wasn't one to ask questions or to pry into other folks' business