In the Net
French’s conversation with Molly Moran had given that young lady very
seriously to think. From the beginning she had realized that the
undertaking in which she was assisting was unlawful, if not actually
criminal. She was not making a bid for French’s sympathy when she told
him that since she had become involved she had been miserable and in
terror. This was the literal truth. Continually she had felt as if she
were living on the edge of a volcano which might break out and
overwhelm her at any moment. Visions of dismissal, of imprisonment, of
ruin were constantly before her and in spite of the money she was
earning she would have been thankful if she could have given up the
whole thing and removed its evil shadow from her life.
But never in her wildest imaginings had she conceived that the affair
could be weighted with murder or she herself in actual physical
danger. The story of Thurza Darke and her two predecessors had
therefore come to her as an appalling shock. Indeed, she realized that
had it come alone she might easily have been driven by panic to take
some step which might have precipitated the very crisis she feared.
Fortunately it had not come alone. The same conversation had brought
her a feeling of overwhelming relief. She had confided her position to
Scotland Yard. She had made a clean breast of everything. And she had
not been arrested nor made to suffer any unpleasantness whatever. On
the contrary she had been met with a sympathetic understanding such as
she could not have expected from a police officer. She had been
promised escape from the toils in which she had been caught as well as
protection against her captors. In spite of the dark suggestion of
murder, as she returned from the manager’s room to her box office she
felt happier than she had done for months.
During the remainder of that day it must be confessed that her
thoughts were far from her job. Mechanically she counted change and
shot out disc tickets while she speculated as to the developments
which would take place as a result of her statement to French. Would
Westinghouse, Style, and Gwen Lestrange be arrested? If so, would she
be a witness at their trial? She had always heard that giving evidence
was a distressing ordeal, especially if one were cross-examined, as
she would be by the lawyers for the defence. However, she was sure
that French would see her through.
Excitement kept her awake for a good part of that night and next
morning she came down with her mind keyed up to a high pitch of
expectancy. What would the day bring forth? Surely with the knowledge
the police now had, some decisive step would be taken before night.
After breakfast she found herself with three hours on her hands before
she must present herself at the cinema. Too restless to settle down at
her boarding house, she determined to go for a walk in the parks, in
the hope that the exercise might calm her mind. She was bursting to
confide her story to all and sundry, but French’s warning as well as
her own fears deprived her of this relief.
As she walked, that other warning which French had given her seemed to
stand out in her mind with an ever growing insistence. Those
addresses, the two places to which she must not go! The further she
walked, the more powerfully they drew her thoughts. That at Harrow did
not so greatly interest her: it was far away. But Waterloo was near.
She had been there scores of times. Not indeed in York Road, but close
by. She would have liked . . . But of course she couldn’t dream of
going there after what Mr. French had said.
She turned resolutely into the Green Park, but ever her thoughts
reverted to the coachbuilder’s yard. Presently without conscious
volition on her part she found herself leaving the Park and walking in
the direction of the River. “This will never do,” she thought; then
she saw that it could not possibly be any harm for her just to walk
past the end of the street and look down. She had an uneasy twinge of
conscience as she crossed Westminster Bridge, but the place drew her
with extraordinary insistence.
Ten minutes later she found herself actually turning into Tate’s Lane.
But here she drew the line. French had said she was not to go and she
would not. Therefore contenting herself with a long, eager look down
the unattractive thoroughfare, she put temptation behind her and
passed on.
But still the place drew her. Aimlessly strolling on with time to
kill, she thought she would go down the next parallel street and have
a look at Tate’s Lane from the other end. Perhaps from there she would
see the builder’s yard.
Thus it came to pass that at just five and twenty minutes past ten she
was slowly sauntering along Killowen Street.
She had walked a hundred yards or more when she saw coming towards her
a green saloon car with a figure which looked familiar at the wheel.
No, she was not mistaken; it was indeed Mr. Style! He was alone, and
though he evidently did not see her, he was stopping, for he was
slowing down and signalling to following drivers. As she stared at
him, he turned the car into an entry almost beside where she was
standing.
Her heart beat fast. Here was news for Mr. French! Was it possible
that where the tremendous organization of Scotland Yard had failed,
she was going to succeed? Mr. French would revise his estimate of her.
She would prove herself less of a fool than he had supposed.
At this moment, as he was crossing the footpath, Style saw her. For
the fraction of a second an ugly gleam shone in his eyes, then he
smiled pleasantly.
“Good morning, Miss Moran,” he called. “This is an unexpected
pleasure. What are you doing in this part of the world?” His tone was
genial and he looked as if delighted by the meeting.
Molly felt a sudden urge to take to her heels. Then she saw that she
could not do so. Style must not be allowed to think that she suspected
him. She must satisfy him that the meeting was accidental and that she
did not connect him with the half crown affair, then pass on and ring
up French from the first shop she came to. If she played her part well
Style would suspect nothing and might stay where he was until French
arrived. She therefore smiled back at him and walked up to the car.
“Good morning, Mr. Style. I didn’t expect to see you either, though I
have often wanted to do so since our last meeting.”
This piece of mendacity was due to a sudden idea. If she could engage
Style in conversation she would probably be able to dispel any
suspicion he might have formed. She would tell him that, having come
into some money, she wished to resume betting on the Monte Carlo
tables.
“In that case I’m very pleased that you have found me. Will you excuse
me for one second till I get the car out of the way of the traffic and
then I shall be at your service.”
He drove the car through the entry, turned it in the yard, and driving
back, stopped inside the entry. Then he came out to Molly.
“Will you come into the office?” he invited. “Though I carry on
bookmaking as a spare-time job, I really work in this shop. I think
only one clerk is in at the moment, so that we can talk without being
disturbed.”
In spite of herself Molly hesitated. French’s warning recurred to her
with increased urgency. Was not this the very thing he had cautioned
her against? Then she told herself she must not be a coward. She could
see through the glass door into the office. There was nothing
terrifying about its appearance. She could also see the clerk. With
him there and in broad daylight and practically in a crowded street
nothing could possibly happen to her. Nevertheless it was with some
trepidation that she followed Style in.
He led her through the opening in the counter, drew a chair forward
near the roll-top desk, and asked her to sit down.
“I’m frightfully sorry,” he declared, “but there is a bit of business
I must attend to before we have our chat. Do you mind if I leave you
for a moment? The inscription on a football cup which we are making
has been changed and I want to stop them before they cut the
lettering.”
He went out through the door into the entry and she presently saw him
pass the window at the back. After a short stare the clerk had resumed
his occupation of transcribing entries into a book. His appearance
comforted her strangely. It was impossible, she felt instinctively,
that anyone as stupid looking as he could be a party to a plot. The
sight through the window of the stream of passers-by and the sound of
their feet on the pavement still further eased her mind. Reassured,
she set herself with a growing and wholly delicious excitement to
await Style’s return.
She was not impressed by the appearance of the office. It was
positively filthy. The floor looked as if it hadn’t been swept for
weeks and dust lay thick on the furniture and the calendars and
pictures on the walls. Compared with the spick and span establishment
at the cinema, with its typewriters, calculating machines, filing
cabinets, and busy air, this place seemed like a reversion to the
conditions of a century earlier. Molly smiled as she contrasted this
uncouth, almost imbecile looking youth, with his untidy clothes and
his inkstained fingers, with the neatly dressed, efficient staff to
which she was accustomed.
Presently there came the whistle of a speaking tube. The youth put
down his pen and slowly shuffled across the room to just behind where
Molly was sitting.
“Yeh,” he said. “Yeh. Two bob? Right.”
He plugged the speaking tube, and taking his cap, lounged slowly out
into the street.
Then Style re-entered. He in his turn went to the speaking tube.
“Just a moment, Miss Moran, and I shall be at your service,” he
apologized as he picked it up. Then he began to speak. “Jenkins . . .
Is that Jenkins? . . . Oh, Jenkins, I want you to get out that
presentation shield that we did last month for Mr. Hargreaves. I’ve
sold it to Otway’s people, and all we have to do is to change the
inscription. You might——”
The voice suddenly trailed away into silence, as a sickening blow
crashed down on Molly’s head. She gasped, while momentary stars
flashed before her eyes, then great waves of darkness seemed to rise
up round her and she felt herself sinking down, down, down, into the
blackness of unconsciousness.
Æons of time passed, and then slowly sensation began to return to
Molly Moran. First she realized only pain, indefinite but terrible
pain. Then this seemed to localize in her head and to pass from there
down through her whole body. Still she was in darkness, still a
roaring sounded in her ears, but gradually she became conscious of
movement. The place that she was in was shaking. At first she knew it
only as something which added to her misery, but as she slowly
regained her senses she realized where she was.
The sounds and the movement told her that she was in a motor car,
travelling at a fair rate of speed. She was lying on the floor of the
tonneau, entirely covered with a rug. This intelligence having sunk
into her brain, experiment told the rest. Attempted movement showed
her that her wrists and ankles were bound together and at the same
time she found that she was securely gagged. Recollection of the scene
in the silversmith’s office then returned to her and she knew what had
happened. She had been kidnapped by Style!
Cold terror took possession of her as she remembered the story French
had told her of the fate of the three girls who had attempted to
betray the gang to the police. Had Thurza Darke, she wondered, lain
bound in the tonneau of this terrible car as it jolted her on towards
her doom? And what had befallen her at the end of the journey? Was
drowning painful? As Molly pictured what might have happened a cold
sweat of fear broke out on her. It was too ghastly even to think of.
And yet before many hours, before many minutes perhaps . . . Almost
she swooned away again as she lay trembling in sick horror, her mind
numb and scarcely functioning.
But she was young and strong. Gradually the paralyzing sharpness of
the first shock passed. Whatever faults she had, cowardice was not one
of them, and soon she was striving desperately to pull herself
together and to put as brave a face on the situation as she could.
Things in her case were not quite so hopeless as in that of poor
Thurza Darke. French was looking after her and she would immediately
be missed. He would trace her to the silversmith’s and so learn what
had happened. With the great organization of the Yard behind him it
could not be long until he found her. In fact he had evidently
foreseen what might occur when he gave her his warning! Oh, that she
had taken that warning!
But suppose he didn’t trace her in time? Resolutely Molly shut her
mind to the suggestion. She was not dead yet. While there was life
there was hope.
To divert her mind from these harrowing thoughts she fixed her
attention more deliberately on her surroundings. Could she learn
anything as to her destination from the sounds she heard?
It was immediately clear to her that they were bowling along at a fair
speed on an extremely good road, asphalted, she thought. But she was
conscious also of a reduction in the sound. She wondered if this were
due to meeting fewer vehicles, as if so, it would indicate that they
were getting farther from London. As she was considering the point
they slowed down, and turning, she believed to the right, passed at a
slower speed over a road with a much worse surface. After a few
minutes they stopped altogether and she heard movements as if her
driver were performing some gymnastic feat in the front seat. Then he
got out and walked round the car and she heard a sort of click behind
it. A moment later he re-entered and again they drove off.
For what she judged as about ten minutes they drove slowly along the
bad road, then a slack, a sounding of the horn, another turn and they
were once more on the smooth surface of a main thoroughfare. A few
minutes of this, a few minutes of another byroad, and after another
slack and turn, the wheels grated on the gravel of a drive. It was
evidently a short one. Then they bumped over some kind of obstruction
and came to rest on a smooth surface. A rolling sound followed by a
clang gave the necessary hint. They had driven into a yard and the big
entrance gate had been shut behind them.
Presently she heard muffled voices and the door of the tonneau was
opened. Then she felt herself being lifted and carried, still rolled
in the rug, into some building and upstairs. One, two, three—six
flights they went up. A few steps more on the level and she was laid
down on something soft. Immediately the rug and gag were taken off and
her bonds loosed.
She found herself in a dingy, whitewashed attic with slanting ceilings
and a skylight. The lower walls were stained and dirty and the boarded
floor looked as if it had not been washed for a year. The furniture
consisted of the bed on which she was lying, a chair, a table, a
wash-basin and jug on an old box, a fireplace with fender and fire
irons but no fire, and in a corner a pile of old, untidy books. Over
her were bending Style and Gwen Lestrange. They watched her in silence
and at the look in their eyes a paralyzing fear again swept over her.
“So you thought you could get off with it,” Style said at last, and
his voice was like the snarl of some vicious animal. “You thought you
could play the traitor, speaking us fair and taking our money, and all
the time spying on us and telling that cursed French what we were
doing. You thought you could, did you?”
Molly was not prepared for this direct attack, but she countered as
well as she could.
“What do you mean? I didn’t tell anyone what you were doing. Sure how
could I when I didn’t know myself?”
Style shook his clenched fist in her face.
“None of that, you traitor!” he answered harshly. “You’ve made the
mistake of your life! You thought you had us, but we have you. You’ve
betrayed us to French, but French can’t help you now. You’re in our
power and you’re going to pay.”
Molly felt his gaze almost as a physical touch. It sapped her
strength, but she clutched her courage with both hands.
“I don’t know what you’re meaning. Who is French anyway?”
“Liar!” Style shouted savagely. “Do you think we’re fools? Do you
think we act before we’re sure? Let me tell you you’ve been watched.
When you were telling French about us on the seat in Charing Cross
Gardens yesterday our agent was reading the paper within twenty feet
of you! He saw you offering to show French your vanity bag and
French’s quick refusal. And we’ve watched you with him before. Fool!”
he glared at her, “to think that you could fool us!”
To Molly his abuse seemed to act as a stimulant. She felt her courage
coming back.
“Ah,” she retorted, “you’re a bit off the track, Mr. Style. That was
me uncle you saw me with. He often meets me and takes me out.”
Gwen Lestrange spoke for the first time.
“Little fool!” she said harshly. “Lies like that will only finish you
up.” But Style held up his hand.
“Just tell us his name,” he demanded with a suddenly ingratiating
manner and a sly look on his narrow face.
His friendliness terrified Molly even more than his anger. She
realized that she had made a mistake and tried to recover.
“French,” she admitted. “I see there’s no good trying to deceive you.
And he is an inspector at Scotland Yard. But he’s me uncle for all
that and he often takes me out and we’ve never discussed you or your
affairs at all.”
Style made a furious gesture.
“You ——!” He used a foul name. “Do you know what happens to liars and
traitors? Did you ever hear of Smith and the brides of the bath—how he
drowned his wives in a bath? Well, that’s what’ll happen to you.
There’s a bath in the next room all ready for you. The water rises
slowly, slowly, slowly; up to your mouth, up to your nose, over your
head. French won’t help you then. Uncle indeed!” He paused and gazed
gloatingly down at the helpless girl.
“He is me uncle,” Molly persisted, but in spite of herself her voice
faltered.
Again Style raved at her.
“Look here,” he shouted. “You’ll get one chance and one only. Tell us
everything that passed between you and French and we’ll let you go.”
He lowered his voice and spoke almost in persuasive tones. “Make a
clean breast of the whole thing and we’ll put you in the car and drive
you to some deserted place from which you can make your way home.
You’d like to be back in London, wouldn’t you?”
He paused expectantly, but Molly did not answer.
“I’m sure you’d like to be free and home again. Well, tell us
everything and you’ll be there in a couple of hours. Hold back the
least fact and you’ll never see London again. No power in heaven or
earth can save you. Tell me,” he bent forward again and stared fixedly
at her with his sinister eyes till she felt all the strength draining
out of her, “tell me, did you ever hear of a young lady named Thurza
Darke? Ah, I see you did. And no one but French could have told you.
You fool, to give that away! Well,” his look became indescribably
evil, “Thurza Darke wouldn’t tell either, and she went and lay in the
bath while the water slowly rose. . . . We had to stop her screams
lest they should be heard outside the house. Then after a long time
the water rose above her mouth and she didn’t scream any more. . . .
That’s what’ll happen to you. It’s just next door.” He motioned with
his hand.
Molly couldn’t speak. She felt too sick with horror. She lay gazing up
at that narrow face with its evil, staring eyes and its expression of
almost maniac hate. Presently Style went on:
“Perhaps you don’t believe me? I tell you there were more than Thurza
Darke. You never heard of Eileen Tucker, did you? Nor of Agatha
Frinton? You don’t know what happened to them? Well, you soon will.”
He pushed forward his face till Molly could scarcely refrain from
screaming. “They were drowned in the bath, and afterwards their bodies
were found in rivers and quarryholes. But yours won’t be found. We’re
going to hide it so that it’ll never be seen again. No one will ever
know what happened to you. Not even your beloved French will ever
know, you——”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake dry up and leave the girl till we’re ready for
her,” burst in Gwen impatiently. “You’ve something else to do than
stand here spouting like a bum actor in a circus! What about those
machines?”
There was hatred in the look Style turned on Gwen and something of
fear also. But his manner changed at once.
“You’re right. We must get on,” he said sullenly, then he turned again
to Molly.
“There’s a bell beside the fireplace. If you want to go back to town
ring and we’ll come to hear your statement. If not—there’s the bath in
the next room!”
He walked to the door, let himself and Gwen out and locked it. Molly
heard their steps descending the stairs and then all was still.