LITMIR.BIZ

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but horribly true. She said something about her having leukaemia and only a year to live—and she also said that since I wouldn’t have her alive I could have her dead.”

      “Mmm.... Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Be that as it may, and taking into account that she may have been a bit unbalanced mentally by knowing her demise was only a year off, it doesn’t alter the fact that you could have killed her.”

      Dale’s face became ugly. “Now listen, Lee, I never killed anybody in all my life—or even hurt ’em knowingly. I’m willing to take my chance on that score.”

      “You are? With a business reputation like yours? Even if the police believe you there’s going to be a lot of publicity, and it won’t be exactly—favourable. Apart from that strychnine bottle, which by now has got your fingerprints all over it—”

      “Damnit, what else do you expect? I told you, I snatched it from her.”

      “I’m sure you did, sir, but your fingerprints are all over it just the same. I was saying—apart from that you can be pretty sure that she’ll have fixed a lot of other things in advance which will tend to incriminate you once they’re unearthed. If she meant to get you—and knowing she was going to commit suicide anyway—she had no need to pull her punches....”

      The monotonous clicking of the rail joints was not so swift as it had been. The train was commencing to slow down, Dale still looked as though he wondered what had hit him, whereas Lee had a faint smile on his thin features.

      “Yes,” Lee said at length, “she’ll have fixed all sorts of things to make matters difficult for you— Let’s take a look at her handbag for a start,”

      “That’s crazy! If the police are to be told we don’t want to touch anything—”

      “I’m thinking of your interests, Mr. Dale. You’ve called me your right hand. You need one now if ever you did.”

      Lee did not hesitate any further. He lifted the girl’s handbag, snapped the catch, and turned the whole issue upside down on the seat. A variety of feminine fripperies fell out. including a small sum of money and, rather significantly, a single ticket to Glasgow. But there was also a sealed envelope, inscribed to ‘Whomever It May Concern’. Lee frowned, tore the flap, and pulled out a note. He read it, then without a word handed it to his worried employer.

      Dale scowled over it, his jaw setting.

      To Whom It May Concern—

      In the event of anything happening to me, please investigate the movements of my former employer, Mr. Morgan Dale, financier, 42 Justin’s Court, London, W1, which person I believe may be directly responsible for any harm that might befall me.

      Janice Elton

      “Of all the damned impudence!” Dale snorted, jumping to his feet and throwing the letter on the seat.

      “Not so much impudence, sir, as strategy. Evidently she hoped the police would find this note—and you can be sure, as I said earlier, that she’ll have left a thorny trail against you.”

      “I don’t care if she has. The police can think what they like but I intend to tell the truth. Take this bottle, for instance. She couldn’t have got poison like this without signing for it. That’s one prop kicked from under her precious story to begin with.”

      “Look, sir, this is one case where honesty and the facts against you don’t jell very easily. Why take a risk like that when everything can be so easily taken care of?”

      “How? This is my compartment, reserved in my name, and this girl is inside it—dead.”

      Lee got up again and moving to the outer windows he peered round the blind. There were slowly moving, dancing lights in the distance. He turned, obviously thinking swiftly.

      “We haven’t much time, sir. We’re coming to the station.... Are you prepared to trust me?”

      “I’ve done so for twenty years so I may as well go on doing it. What do you suggest?”

      “Throwing this unfortunate young lady out of the carriage whilst there is still time. Since she’s dead it won’t hurt her.”

      “How the devil do you propose to do that? There is solid window on this side of the carriage and the corridor on the other.”

      “We’re in the last compartment, aren’t we? In the corridor there’s the door and a drop-window: we wouldn’t have to pass any other compartments to get to it. It’s a chance, I know, but it’s worth it.”

      Dale did not say anything. Lee continued:

      “In her fingers, which are not yet too rigid, we can put the poison bottle so she’ll be clutching it. The handbag and the letter we’ll retain. She could hardly jump from a moving train with a handbag clutched to her, but she might hold the poison bottle.”

      “Mmm—she might. It’s ghoulish, Lee.”

      “Why is it? It makes you safe, and the girl herself will feel nothing.”

      “It would make things simpler,” Dale mused.

      “Even more so when I swear—should it ever be needed—that you, and I were alone in here throughout the journey.... I’m your right-hand man, remember?”

      Dale did not hesitate any longer. Indeed there was not the time. In a matter of minutes the train would be pulling into Glasgow. He moved to Lee’s side and watched impatiently whilst Lee worked the blue bottle into the girl’s stiffening fingers. In the midst of the job he glanced up.

      “See if the corridor’s quiet,” he instructed. “If it is, get the door open and leave it on the second catch. We’ve got to act fast.”

      Dale did as he was told—for a change. The corridor was empty. He leapt across the brief stretch to the outside door and dropped the window reaching his hand down to the outer catch of the door. Steam and cold wind blew into his eyes.... Then he came back into the compartment to find Lee in the act of hauling the girl’s dead weight from the seat.

      “Okay,” Lee wheezed. “Out with her. Grab hold.”

      Dale obeyed and grabbed the girl’s ankles. Then with the body slumped between them they shuffled quickly across the small intervening stretch of still deserted corridor to the partly unlatched door.

      “Right,” Lee panted. “Leave her to me. I’ve got her.”

      With an effort Lee propped the girl up on her feet, taking her sagging weight against his own shoulder. He reached with one hand to open the door, and then shoved. The door opened slowly against the pressure of the wind and the girl reeled outwards into the night and was gone. The door slammed shut again as Lee pulled it.

      He looked at Dale and they went back into their compartment, mopping their sweating faces. At last Dale said:

      “I still don’t know if we did the right thing.”

      “There was no other way, sir—and good luck was with us in that the corridor was empty.”

      Lee looked about him and then methodically collected the odds and ends from the seat, the accusing note included, and put them all back in the handbag together with the strychnine bottle’s cardboard container. Still with the same calmness he put the handbag in his briefcase and buckled the straps.

      “It would be better if I kept the handbag,” he said, as Dale watched him. “You mustn’t have the slightest hint of that girl having been anywhere near you. At a convenient moment I’ll destroy everything.”

      “Fair enough,” Dale muttered, pulling his hat and coat from the rack. “Better start getting ready, Lee—we’re coming into the station from the look of things.”

      Lee said nothing. For a reason best known to himself he was smiling....

      CHAPTER TWO

      BLACKMAIL

      Because

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