He hunched his shoulders and walked slowly to the waiting car.
Detective Sergeant Adams dropped off the bus with a cheery “good night” to the conductor and walked up the steps to the front door of 155A Fulham Road. As he pressed the bell push, he stifled a yawn. It was almost midnight and he had had a long tiring day. The desk sergeant at Vine Street Station had given him Cedric Smythe’s urgent message and it had not improved his temper. It was only because he lived a few hundred yards from Cedric’s house that he had bothered to look in at all.
Cedric opened the door almost immediately. “There you are,” he said, his round, pink and white face lighting up with relief. “I thought you were never coming.”
“Well, I can’t stay a moment,” Adams returned a little shortly. “I’ve been on my feet all day and I want some rest.
What’s the trouble?”
“My dear boy,” Cedric said, opening wide the front door and stepping aside, “this is far too serious to discuss on the doorstep. Come in. I’m very worried. You know I’m not the worrying kind, but this time, I am really very worried indeed.”
Adams grinned rather cynically. “Bosh,” he said, following Cedric into his sitting room. “You’d worry over anything.
Why if the cat had fleas you wouldn’t sleep a wink.”
“I haven’t got a cat,” Cedric returned somewhat coldly. “I dislike cats. Nasty, slinky things! But sit down, Jerry. I must talk to someone. I’m sure you’re tired, but I do want your advice. Have a drink? There’s whisky or beer. What’ll you have?”
Jerry Adams sighed, put his hat on the table and sat down in the big comfortable armchair. “I’ll have a whisky I think,” he said stretching out his long legs. “But be a good chap and get to the point. Has one of your boarders run off without paying his bill?”
Cedric compressed his full lips. “Really, Jerry, you’re most unfeeling,” he said a little bitterly. “I tell you this is serious. It might even be a police matter.”
Adams shot him a quick glance. “Oh? How do you make that out?”
“I must begin at the beginning,” Cedric returned, refusing to be hurried. He carried two large whiskies across the room and after adding a splash of soda in both, he handed one of the glasses to Adams. “Here’s how,” he went on, sitting down in the chair opposite.
“You mustn’t laugh at me,” Cedric repeated. “I’m very worried about Miss Hedder. There’s something going on I don’t like at all.”
“Oh? Miss Hedder again. What’s she been up to now?”
“She’s not mixing with the right people,” Cedric said, shaking his head. “In fact, she’s mixing with criminal types.”
Adams laughed. “Oh, come on, Cedric. What do you know about criminal types?”
“I know a bad lot when I see one and this boy, Joe Crawford, is a bad lot if there ever was one.”
“Joe Crawford? Who’s he?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. He came here a few days ago with a note for Miss Hedder. He was extraordinarily rude to me. Really, Jerry, you have no idea the words he used, and the look of him! He quite frightened me and you know I’m not easily frightened.”
“He brought her a note?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. The note wasn’t properly fastened and, seeing what a desperate character he was, I thought it was my duty to read it.”
“You’ll be getting yourself into trouble if you make a practice of that,” Adams said a little drily.
“Of course, if it hadn’t been unsealed, I wouldn’t’ve dreamed of reading it,”
Cedric said hastily. “I may have some faults but curiosity isn’t one of them.” He avoided Adams’ jeering eyes and self-consciously cleared his throat. “If I remember rightly the message simply said ‘Go to Fresby’s Agency, 24c Rupert Court, W.C.2. He’ll get you in,’ and it was signed J. C.”
Cedric told him about the arrival of the trunk and how upset Susan had been.
“She locked her room up and she stayed out all night. Then just after ten o’clock tonight, I heard a taxi drive up and she and a tall, thin, elderly man came in and went upstairs to her room. They came down almost immediately dragging a trunk between them. I spoke to Miss Hedder but she was in such a nervous state that she didn’t seem to hear me. The elderly man told me to mind my own business in a most insolent way and they went off together with the trunk in the taxi.”
Adams finished up his whisky and put the glass on the table. “You’re sure the girl was upset?”
“Of course I am. She was trembling and white. I thought she was going to faint at one time.”
“Can you give a better description of the man?”
“Well, he was tall and thin. I’d say he was about fifty. He had a thick scrubby iron-grey moustache and a long, pointed nose. He looked a furtive, seedy individual,” not the kind of person to go around with a nice young lady like Miss Hedder.”
“That sounds like Jack Fresby,” Adams said, frowning. “Hmm, well, I don’t know. Fresby’s a bad lot, but that doesn’t mean that there’s much to worry about.”
“But there is,” Cedric said. “I haven’t told you about the trunk yet.”
“The trunk? What about it?”
“Jerry, there was something about that trunk that completely unnerved me.
After this boy Joe had delivered it, I went upstairs and examined it. It frightened me.” Cedric put his whisky down and mopped his temples with his handkerchief.
“There was a most peculiar smell coming from it. A smell, Jerry, that reminded me of my father’s funeral.”
Cedric held up his hand. “Listen!”
They both heard the front door close and the sound of someone running upstairs.
“That’s her now,” Cedric said, jumping to his feet.
“Wait a moment,” Adams was also on his feet. “We mustn’t be too hasty.”
He glanced at the marble clock on the mantelpiece. It was twenty minutes past midnight. “See if you can persuade her to come down for a chat. Tell her one of your old friends has called in and would like to meet her.”
Cedric pursed his lips. “She’s most unsociable,” he said dubiously. “I don’t think she’ll come.”
Adams thought for a second. “All right, tell her it’s someone from Joe Crawford. That should bring her down.”
“All right, but what are you going to say?”
“Never mind that,” Adams returned. “Go up right away before she has time to go to bed.”
After a wait of some five minutes, he heard Cedric returning. He was not alone.
Susan, her heart thudding, stared at the tall man who stood before the empty fireplace. As soon as she saw him, she felt a relaxing of her fears. He looked kind, and not, as she had feared, when she heard that he wanted to see her, from the police.
“This is Miss Hedder,” Cedric said, closing the door. “Mr. Jerry Adams.”
Adams smiled. “I hope you’ll forgive me, Miss Hedder, for worrying you at this time of the night. Won’t you sit down?”
Susan looked at Cedric and then at Adams. Her eyes were dark with apprehension. She hesitated and then walked slowly across to a chair and sat down. She again looked at Cedric uneasily.
Adams turned to Cedric. “I think Miss Hedder would prefer to talk to me alone.”
Cedric’s fat face fell. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll make some tea. Yes, you two talk. You’ll like Mr. Adams,” he went on to Susan.
“He’s a very dear friend of mine. We used to be in Rep. together.”
Susan didn’t say anything. She was now looking at Adams a little less doubtfully.
“All right, you go and make us some tea,” Jerry said, and crossing the room, he opened the door. As Cedric passed him, he murmured, “I’ll call you when I’ve talked to her.”
After Cedric had gone, there was a short, nervous silence, then Adams said, “Cedric tells me that you know Joe Crawford.”
Susan stiffened. “I don’t know him very well,” she said, her mind crawling with alarm.
“He and I used to be great friends,” Adams went on quietly. There was something wrong, he told himself. This kid was as jumpy as a cat, and every time he spoke to her, terror came into her eyes.