CHAPTER XXIV

VISITORS FOR JOAN

Long after midnight Joan Sands had sat curled up on the chesterfield. Through the open window had come the thunder of the Piccadilly explosion, but she had not even gone to the window to try and find out the meaning of the noise and shouting. Something dreadful had happened, and the Triangle was in it. One didn't have to be a clairvoyant to realise that without making a personal inspection. And where the Triangle went Jimmy went--even to the gallows....

She consumed cigarette after cigarette, without tasting or enjoying a single one, and her eyes were bloodshot with the smart of straying smoke. It was a purely mechanical process, a device to assist thought or to prevent it--she was not sure which. At least the narcotic had a soothing effect on her overwrought nerves, and having something to manipulate with her fingers kept her within certain materialistic bounds. The same applied to the stiff whisky-and-soda she had mixed herself; half of it was still in the glass beside her--she had gulped half of it down, and had not touched the rest since.

A queer, hectically coloured jazz-pattern mind had this slim, fluffily beautiful girl. Now those jazz-patterns had kaleidoscoped into a medley of nightmare imaginings. The only light in the room came from the red-shaded reading lamp behind her head, and the shadows around her, with their crimson high-lights, grouped themselves into the real semblance of her dire grotesque visions. She would have sold the world for company at that hour, for the comforting presence of someone strong and calm and friendly who'd hold her in his arms and scare away the bogeys with a cheery word. Jimmy, for instance. In those last few days he'd shown a sympathy one wouldn't have suspected him of possessing and a strength of character which was the last thing on earth an ex-jailbird waster ought by rights to have trumped out. Or Storm would have done. She wished she'd made him stay--bar Jimmy, he was the only man who'd ever had a kind word for her, who'd ever treated her four-square, with no _arrière-pensée_. And the realisation that she no longer felt capable of standing on her own feet and facing things out alone was the hardest of all to bear--she, the ice-hearted, cool, calculating adventuress, was getting soft; while even jelly-spined sops like Jimmy were suddenly sprouting shells. The fact that Jimmy's new-found backbone had awakened in her a genuine respect--something that was tending to passionate love--didn't enter into the balance sheet for the moment. There were weaknesses and tender patches in her armour that she'd never encountered before, and the discovery of them was a salutary lesson to conceit. Joan failed to derive any enjoyment from the revelation. Shock education takes some standing up to. She preferred the Montessori system.

Anyway, all recrimination and sentiment aside, the fact remained that she felt intolerably lonely and unhappy. For the second time in her life she was utterly sincere, and she was unable to decide whether her primary reaction to this unaccustomed attitude was shame or--fright. Not, of course, that she figured the whole thing out in such a precise scientific manner. Her introspection ran on lines which combined the antics of a giant switchback and a roundabout, but the general trend of them was much simpler.

She must have dozed at last, for a stealthy movement beside her recalled her to objective thinking with a big jump. She looked up, shaking the hair out of her eyes. There was a man standing beside her couch.

"Jimmy!" she breathed. "How did you get here?"

She was getting up, but he put out a hand and gently forced her back, sitting down beside her. He looked very tired, but he was smiling.

"I couldn't stay away. I was supposed to stay till to-morrow, but I'd done my--business--and there didn't seem to be any point in sticking on. So I came back on the night train. Why're you up so late, Joan?"

"Oh--I don't know," she said petulantly. "Why can't I sit up if I feel like it? I didn't feel tired."

He was gazing fixedly at her, and then he took her face between his two hands and turned it so that the light fell full across it.

"That's not true. Something's happened--I can see it in your eyes." His finger moved and brushed two little drops of dew from her cheek. "You've been crying. Joan! What is it?"

She said nothing, pulling his hands away and bowing her head again into the darkness.

"Have the police been here, Joan?"

He was looking about the apartment, but she had replaced the rugs and furniture so that there was no trace of Storm's visit.

"The Triangle have blown up Piccadilly--my taxi driver told me about it," he said. "Is that it? Or did the men come through from the next room and--and annoy you?"

He could hear the quick hissing intake of her breath. And then, with a little gasping cry, she drooped into his arms.

"Joan"--fiercely--"_Joan!_"

"All right, boy." Her hands went up and passed behind his head. "I was worried--because of you. And crying--because of you. Because--because--oh, Jimmy, say it for me!"

"Because you love me," he said unevenly. "Joan ... my darling girl...."

Somehow they had both come to their feet. Never in all Mattock's flabby life, never in Joan's hard life, had either known a moment to compare with that one. She had married him to please him, and she'd never made any secret of it. But now...

He kissed her lips, her hair, her eyes, straining her to him. Heaven lay around him like a flame; the glory of it eddied through his veins like fire.

"Joan, I'm a rotten old buffer for you to fall in love with," he muttered. "But I'll try to wash that away. We'll go on a proper honeymoon--anywhere you like--out of here--give up this flat----"

"No--no!" She broke away from him almost savagely. "You've got to listen. The busies've been here to-night. Arden and Teal. They searched the place--look!"

He pulled her roughly back into his arms.

"What does that matter?" he demanded. "What does anything else in life matter besides this?"

"Nothing.... But you must look, Jimmy."

She forced him to turn so that he faced the damaged bookcase. He stared at it dumbly, and she felt him go stiff, but he shook his head.

"Have you broken it or something?"

She pulled open the hidden door, showing him the headphones and transmitter.

"This is your bookcase--you had it sent in, though I've never seen you go to it. It was always locked. Arden showed me--that's a cut-in on the telephone in the next room, and Arden said the Triangle gave orders to his men _from here_. There was a letter for you from the Apex. Arden showed that to me too. You left it behind. Jimmy, I know what your business was in Devonshire! What's the use of keeping up the pretence?" She looked straight at him. "_What time did your train get in?_"

He said nothing, and there was a long silence. His face was working strangely. She saw the old devil rousing again in his staring eyes, and ran to him in a panic.

"They may be back any time--maybe they were watching and saw you come in! I've got two bags packed. I had them ready waiting for you. We've got passports--we've got to get away! Jimmy----"

_Zzzzzzing!... Zzzzzzing!..._

The strident voice of the hall bell cut short the incoherent stammer of words that tumbled from her lips, and for a space of time it seemed as if her heart stopped beating. And when it moved again, it pounded like a two-stroke piston. The busies had seen Mattock come in.... They were going to arrest him.... His face went white; yet still he stood motionless as a statue, gazing at the bookcase with unseeing eyes.

_Zzzzzzing!... Zzzzzzing-zing!..._

"They're here! Jimmy--what's wrong with you? Why don't you do something?" She glanced frantically about her. His immobility was maddening. His brain seemed to have gone dead. "The other room--they mightn't look there----"

_Zzzzzzing!... Zzzzzzing-zing!..._

It was the flimsiest of flimsy hopes; but if she could stall them off for a couple of minutes he might have time to break away before the cordon closed. She must centre all their attention on the one door while he got through the other.

The bag she had packed for him stood in one corner. She thrust it into his hand, and his fingers closed on the grip mechanically. The partition door was still ajar, but she had almost to barge him through the gap. He was gone at last, and with a gasp of relief she closed and wedged the door and hastily tidied her hair. Then she went unsteadily down the hall.

"I'm sure I Beg Your Pardon," said Joe Blaythwayt politely.

So great was the shock that for a moment she just gaped blankly at him, while he came inside and wiped his shoes fastidiously on the mat.

"A most irregular hour for calling, madam," he remarked. "I trust you will Forgive the Intrusion, and--er--Feel No Alarm on account of my Presence. I am a Widower, and therefore not Impressionable. The Urgency of my Business is my excuse."

When Joe was excited the intangible Capital Letters which decorated his pompous speech multiplied exceedingly. He was clearly excited at that moment. A light which in anybody else would have been called martial shone in his eyes and his grasp on his umbrella was fidgety.

Recovering slightly she closed the door behind him and led him into the sitting-room. There had been nobody else to be seen in the corridor.

"Now what d'you want?" she asked sharply.

"I want to see Jimmy," he replied, so bluntly that she was taken aback.

"Jimmy's in Devonshire--you know that," she said.

His cherubic blue eyes wandered round the room, and came to rest at last on a felt hat which lay on the floor by the chesterfield. Before she could stop him he had picked it up and seen the name written in the lining.

"This wasn't here when I was!" he squeaked excitedly. "Jimmy's been here since we left! Where is he?"

"I brought that in to clean a stain off it," she told him calmly. "Jimmy won't be back till to-morrow. If you want to see him so badly try again to-morrow evening."

He wiggled a fat forefinger all but in her face, literally dancing in his agitation.

"Woman, Do Not Lie To Me!" His flustered effervescence resulted in speech that fairly bristled with capitals. "I Want The Truth. Jimmy Has Been Here. Jimmy Is Here! Where's he hiding? Where's he gone? What've you done with him? Answer Me!"

Question overflowed question in one delirious cataract but Joan had recovered her composure to some extent by this time.

"What's your game?" she demanded hotly. "Coming into my flat at this hour of the night and making a scene! Get out, Blaythwayt. Who d'you think you are? Who are you? Some fly cop--one of these clever busies out of a serial?"

"No, madam--my Warrant!"

With an air of a conjuror he produced from his waistcoat pocket a glittering silver and enamel badge, and she recoiled in horrified amazement from the sign of the Triangle.

It is doubtful if he observed her perturbation at all. At all events he ignored it. His blue eyes swept the room again, peering at every nook as though he expected to find Mattock concealed behind a flower-pot or cached behind a picture. He saw the closed partition door, and let out an electrifying squawk of eagerness. She saw the inspiration dawn in his brain, and made an instinctive movement to block the way--a rash step which she instantly regretted.

"Stand Aside, Madam," he commanded tremblingly; and, when she did not budge, he pulled her rudely away and kicked open the door.

She tried to hold him back, impelled by she knew not what fear, but he flung her off like a child. He dashed into the other room and she followed him to find him blinking open-mouthed at emptiness. Mattock's bag stood on the table but Mattock himself was gone and the door leading into the passage stood wide.

For some seconds they were both petrified. And then Joe Blaythwayt gave vent to one strangled yelp of apprehension and rushed across the room, and she heard him go blinding down the corridor towards the stairs.