Murder First Class by Leonard Gribble

Author:Leonard Gribble [Gribble, Leonard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: PFD Books
Published: 2014-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII

THE PACE QUICKENS

THE police car tore along Poole Road, swung left on the traffic lights at County Gates, and roared full throttle down the Avenue. Then Baxter swung right, down Western Road, and the car swerved and pitched along that short cut to Canford Cliffs. This time the police car swung into the drive, and its wheels churned up the smooth sandy surface of the gravel as Baxter trod on the brake pedal.

It was Slade who rang the bell. He pushed past the manservant who answered his summons.

“I want to see Miss Lambert,” he snapped.

“Really, sir, I——”

“Stop stalling,” Slade told him, and the man promptly looked scared. “What’s happened?”

“She was taken queer, sir, while on the telephone. Mr. Hurst has rushed her to a doctor’s.”

Slade caught the man’s arm. He held it in a hard grip.

“Which doctor’s? What’s his number?”

The man tried to draw away, but Slade’s grip didn’t relax.

“I don’t know, sir. He carried her down to the car, and sort of told me over his shoulder, like. That’s all I know, sir.”

“Who drove?”

“Hanson, sir.”

“But Hanson’s supposed to be away with his lordship, isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir, that’s right. But he came back late last night, and told us in the servants’ hall this morning that he’d come down from London, where he had been waiting for his lord-ship. He had received instructions to come back to Canford Cliffs.”

“And who gave him the instructions?”

“I don’t know. Really, sir, you’re hurting my arm, and——”

Slade dropped the man’s arm. “Hanson has a room over the garage, I take it?”

“That’s right.”

“Lead me to it.”

“But——”

“Listen, my man. This is the police, and if you don’t want to end up as an accessory to a particularly violent crime you’d better do as I say without any argument.”

“Yes, sir. Of course—only Mr. Hurst——”

“Damn Mr. Hurst. I’ll deal with him.”

At those words the man looked relieved. He jumped through the open front door and ran down the porch steps.

“This way,” he called over his shoulder.

Slade and Baxter hastened after him. The Yard man had a shrewd idea of what kind of queerness had overcome Marian Lambert. She had been attacked—and for the same reason that Daisy Thorpall had been shot. Someone was afraid, and that someone’s fear was taking toll in lives. He thought of Lady Celia Morden, and his gaze became fixed and hard.

The garage doors were open, and the car was gone, as Slade knew it would be. The man tried the handle of a door set flush with the wall. It opened easily. Slade and Baxter went on up a flight of stone stairs, until they came to another door.

This one was locked. Slade took a bunch of keys from his pocket. The fourth key he tried turned the lock, and they went inside. They found themselves in a bachelor’s apartment snug enough, but untidy and littered with cigarette stubs and clothes that had not been brushed and put away.

Slade began taking the place to pieces in a systematic and thorough way that made the manservant stare and evoked a grin of appreciation from the professional Baxter.

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