THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

got more at stake than I had me being innocent of all these things you've accused me of so we had to see to her get-away first. It was her stunt all through a fake quarrel in the passage, some flour well rubbed into her face and a touch of brown paint on her dress just above her heart. She looked real ghastly when the cab came up and I helped her in.

      "We reckoned you'd rise to it," went on Ling drily. "If the cab did get through well and good. If it didn't, why you wouldn't keep as close an eye on a corpse as you would on a live woman and you could trust Gwennie to light out when she saw her chance. Anyway it was the best we could do in a hurry. I stayed a little longer than I ought. Guess I thought there was time for one more pipe. Anyway, if you think you can touch me for murder you can't you've got to get her. She's away by now, so my telling won't hurt her."

      He grinned maliciously as he finished. The station officer calmly put down his pen.

      "Done?" he queried.

      "That's all I've got to say just now. My lawyer'll do the talking if you go on with this."

      "Take him below," ordered the inspector and began to gather up his papers.

      Jimmie eagerly turned to Menzies. "What do you make of it?" he asked. "How did you know about Gwennie? I've been with you ever since and--"

      The chief inspector smoothed his sparse hair. "Didn't know," he said shortly. "I guessed. We were too pushed to judge except by appearances and he's probably right about it's being a fake. No good worrying till we hear from Royal. He may have tumbled to it, but you see he'd go to a hospital and then to the local station and then perhaps on to the opium joint. We don't know what sort of a rumpus he may have had. We came straight on here to Kensington to charge Ling. If she's got away he'll have done everything necessary to head her off. We can only wait in patience."

      "But he won't know where you are," remonstrated Jimmie.

      Menzies smiled. "He knows that I'd have brought Ling here, and if he didn't he could find out in ten minutes by putting in an all-station call from wherever he happened to be. There's the tape machine and the telephone to every police station in London and you can't lose an officer unless he wants to be lost. No, the question of Gwennie isn't going to upset me yet. In our business you can't often run a one-man show. You've got to trust your colleagues. Royal's keen enough, and if she should bilk him the wires would be alight mighty quick." He pulled out his watch. "I shall give him another five minutes and then go home. I'm fairly worn out."

      "Do you think there's anything in that guff of Ling's? Whether he's bluffing or not, it seems to me you've got your work cut out to prove any murder against him if she does get away. She had as much motive as he did."

      "Yes. It sounded plausible, didn't it?" said the chief inspector serenely. "There's only one little legal point that he as well as you missed. I'm dead sure that Ling killed Greye-Stratton but it wouldn't make the slightest difference to him if I couldn't prove it which I think I can. It doesn't matter a button who fired the shot all those in the conspiracy are equally guilty of murder even if they were a million miles away at the time. There's the motive, there's the fact that Ling (or someone wearing clothes of exactly the same material, which would be an extraordinary coincidence) was in the house; there is Greye-Stratton's pistol, which you will have to swear you took from him, and oh, there's a dozen things."

      The swing door of the charge room clattered noisily open and Jimmie wheeled to confront Royal. The detective-sergeant's clothes were torn and smothered in mud and there was an ugly black bruise on his face. Deep encrimsoned scratches were on both cheeks and his eyes were bloodshot. He laughed unsteadily as he saw them.

      "What a night we're having!" he said. "What a light we're having! You got Ling?"

Chapter XXXIII

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      Menzies was at his side in an instant and had slipped a supporting arm round him.

      "Got him tight," he answered. "You look to have been in something, old chap. Much hurt? All right, don't trouble to talk now." He raised his voice. "One of you people call that doctor up again."

      "I got Gwennie," muttered Royal feebly. "Slippery Jezebel she is, too, but I got her. She wasn't dead at all, Mr. Menzies. She...."

      "That's all right," said the chief inspector soothingly. "You shall tell us all about that later." But he drew a long breath of relief.

      It was half an hour later that Royal, pulled together by the skilled ministrations of the divisional surgeon, was able to tell his story. He grinned apologetically at Menzies.

      "Sorry to have made an ass of myself like that, sir," he said. "I wanted to come right on and tell you all about it so I didn't stay to be patched up. I never thought I'd get the worst doing I've ever had from an old woman."

      "She seems to have mucked you up and that's a fact," agreed Menzies.

      "She did that," explained Royal. "I was too busy cursing my luck at being left to look after a deader while you were on the warpath with Ling that I never stopped to consider she mightn't be dead after all."

      "I made the same mistake," said Menzies. "You aren't to blame there."

      "Maybe I was in a bit of a hurry," confessed Royal. "I didn't think a corpse required much watching. I was thinking of the driver. He might have been all right and again he mightn't. So when he patched the engine up I took my seat alongside of him and we started off for the hospital at quite a respectable speed. We'd just turned into the main road when I heard a click behind me and it flashed across my mind that I'd been careless in taking the old girl so much on trust. I bent round the side of the cab to take a look through the window and there was a hand fumbling with the door handle. I'd had to twist like an acrobat to get a fair look and I suppose I was a little off my guard. First thing I knew the cab gave a lurch and I was rolling over and over in the mud of the roadway. It was a mercy I didn't break my neck, but I wasn't thinking of that. I just picked myself up and there was the cab a hundred yards ahead putting on steam for all it was worth.

      "It came to me then what a damn fool I'd been. If you'll believe me, sir, I hadn't even taken the number of that rotten cab, and it was too far away to see it. ' This about puts the finish to your career in the C. I. D., Royal, my man,' I thinks to myself and pulled out my whistle. Of course I knew there wasn't a chance in a million of that doing any good. She'd got too big a start.

      "I'm not much of a believer in miracles, but I'm blest if one didn't happen then. As I'm alive a great big touring car came sliding along towards me. The chauffeur was bringing it back from Southend or somewhere, I learned afterwards. I jumped to it and pulled him up.

      "'You noticed a taxi-cab that you've just passed,' I says.

      "He looks me up and down and you can guess I was in a pretty pickle of mud from head to foot. If I hadn't pulled myself up into the seat alongside of him and took possession I reckon he'd have gone on without me.

      "'You've got a devil of a cool nerve,' he says. ' Get off this car or I'll fling you off and call a policeman.'

      "I was getting over my shake-up a bit then, but there wasn't time for argument. ' For God's sake don't chew the rag with me,' I says. ' Turn her head round and get after that cab before it gets a chance to dodge me.'

      "Well, that chauffeur was a sport. I will say that for him. He jerked that big car about in double-quick time and we began sliding after Gwennie. I felt my luck was in.

      "'Now what's it all about? ' he says as soon as we got going. ' If you're having a game with me, my lad, you've got the biggest sort of hiding you ever had in your life coming to you.' He looked it, too.

      "'I'm a detective officer,' I says, ' and in that cab there's a woman wanted for murder. Now bust your car or catch her.'

      "He nodded and let the car out. You know the Wliitechapel Road's fairly straight in stretches and we had a view of the cab before it took one of the bends. There'll be