SHADOW OF A GUN by Thomas Martin

Author:Thomas Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

*

Blake broke off as the clamour of an ambulance bell reached the room, then spoke quickly as it abruptly stopped.

“Before the police get here, Mr. Romsey,” he said, “I want you to try to remember if your daughter Judy ever mentioned a man named Mike. Ask your wife if she can recall Judy doing so. We now know that there was a Mike in Judy’s life ” He broke off again as the Director touched his shoulder with sudden excitement.

“Mr. Blake!” Jerome exclaimed. “Let me congratulate you!”

“On what?” Blake inquired, while Paula looked at them with an intensified interest.

“That theory of yours-the red herring! Your suggestion that the kidnapping of Miss Romsey is intended to make him a security suspect and divert suspicion from a willing traitor among us!” He gestured towards a green enamelled steel filing-cabinet in one corner. “That cabinet is kept locked, because it contains work of Romsey’s to which Ferguson would have no authorised access. So–”

“So he came here to rifle that filing cabinet?” Blake murmured. “I don’t think so. I thought we’d just disposed of the idea that he could have been taken by surprise here, caught in the act of anything nefarious. But try the cabinet!”

Jerome crossed the room and tugged at the handle of each drawer in turn. Each one refused to budge.

“Then-” he began.

“Then ” Blake said, “we’re left with the more logical alternative. That he came here to wait for Mr. Romsey -to take-him by surprise in the dark!”

“But that still makes him a traitor!” Jerome pointed out. “It still confirms that red-herring theory you suggested this afternoon. So his motive in coming here, and with a-a firearm, was to—”

“Chief!” Paula cut in, with unusual excitement. “if Ferguson were a traitor, he was probably working with Judy’s kidnappers. So he could have come here to do a deal with Mr. Romsey-with Judy as the hostage. To tell him their terms, what they wanted. That he, Ferguson, was the go-between he had to pass secret information to. It wasn’t the sort of instructions they’d put in writing, like that phoney ransom demand. And if Mr. Romsey wouldn’t play, Ferguson could have intended to silence him with this gun and leave it to look like suicide. Suicide caused by worry over Judy!”

Blake returned her eager gaze appreciatively. “It’s a logical theory!” he admitted. “And it still leaves us the job of finding Judy’s abductors-the men behind the traitor. But this sounds like the ambulance men and police coming. Let’s give them room to work, shall we?”

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