Callers for Dr Morelle Read online

  CALLERS FOR DR. MORELLE

  Ernest Dudley

  © Ernest Dudley 1957

  Ernest Dudley has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1957 by Robert Hale Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter One

  He had come in noiselessly, appearing in the doorway from the kitchen, before she realized anyone was there. She made a slim and young figure, graceful in her jeans and yellow sweater.

  She faced him in the sitting-room of the cottage, and she felt desperately alone.

  Outside the wind sighed gently round the eaves, rattled the windows now and again. She had been thinking that there was thunder in the air. It had been a warm day and the evening had brought up a stifling oppressiveness in the atmosphere, which even the slight wind failed to disperse.

  She could hear a night-owl crying in the copse at the end of the little garden at the back. The copse would show up black against the sky, splashed with early stars.

  Alarm was thrilling through her like an electric shock. She sensed the menace in his silent stare.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she heard herself say. ‘What do you want?’

  He did not answer immediately.

  He had not taken off his dark trilby hat, and it partly shaded his eyes. His eyes were small and round, dull and dead like little pieces of slate. They were always like that in his hollow-cheeked face, with its thin strip of moustache.

  He was not much taller than she was, yet his shoulders were thick and heavily muscled. His arms tapered down to hands that were small in black silk gloves, almost feminine they looked.

  Her uneasiness grew as she heard the ticking of the leather travelling-clock on the mantelpiece above the glowing fire become increasingly magnified.

  It was an old cottage, low-ceilinged and black beamed.

  The room was small, comfortably furnished, its curtains drawn across the low window, against the oncoming night. There were bowls of flowers on two small polished oak tables. One side of the fire-place held bookshelves, overflowing with a jostling miscellany of books. Glossy womens’ magazines were scattered about. It was a little untidy, but it was warm and restful.

  Or it had been until the man had come in.

  At last he said:

  ‘I just brought you a little present.’

  His voice was cold, toneless. It went with the eyes in the shadowed face.

  Puzzlement mingled with the fear in her lustrous brown eyes. The nostrils of her small, neat nose became pinched, her mouth paled underneath the lipstick.

  ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she said breathlessly, her heart thudding with fear. ‘Leave me alone.’

  His smile was only a slight twisting of the thin lips.

  Some premonition of her dread fate struck home to her. Her innermost vitals seemed to coil within her. She knew now why he had sought her out the way he had done.

  ‘No . . . no.’ She was gasping, backing away as he began to move towards her, slowly, purposefully.

  ‘I was sent to give you this,’ he said. ‘To give it to you nice and quiet, so that nobody will ever know.’

  A hand came from his raincoat pocket. He held up a small object delicately between black silken finger and thumb. It gleamed in the light from the shaded electric lamp in the corner. She stared at it, in horrified fascination. It was a capsule. Sheer terror raced through her, sickening fright showed in her dilated eyes.

  ‘What . . . is . . . that?’ she found herself whispering.

  The man smiled. That slow twisting of the thin lips beneath the moustache.

  ‘Just cyanide,’ he said softly. ‘You won’t know you’ve taken it, it’s so quick. No trouble at all.’

  She screamed, turning to run, to flee wildly from this deadly visitor. He leaped, striking like a snake. In the same movement he tucked the capsule inside his raincoat and in the breast-pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Save your breath,’ he snarled. ‘There’s nobody to hear you. There’s just you and me.’

  The small, steel-like hands held her, dragging her back.

  Even then she could not believe she was going to die. She had suffered, she had thought once; not so long ago she’d wanted to die. So she had thought, during those long sleepless nights and hopeless dawns. But she was young.

  She fought his merciless grip, beating at him with her fists, kicking, but it all made no impression on him. She did not even succeed in pushing his hat away from his eyes.

  She was helpless against his dynamic strength. He flung her on to the divan, and held her down. One silk-gloved hand gripped her wrist, twisting her arm under her, so that she lay contorted to one side, her face turned up to him, her teeth bared in a grin of desperate agony.

  Moaning, she still tried to fight him, writhing on the divan.

  ‘Don’t . . . don’t,’ she choked. ‘For God’s sake, don’t do anything to me. I’ll do what you want, what anyone wants.’

  A quick movement and his hand that had gripped her wrist was suddenly pressing over her nostrils, turning her face up to him, while he still held her down on the divan. Her slim legs thrashed in the jeans, her mouth opened and she gulped for breath.

  In that instant the other hand had slid deftly inside the raincoat. The capsule was in her mouth. She could feel it smooth and rounded on her tongue. The hand pressed over her nostrils shifted down over her mouth.

  She could not breathe. Her eyes bulged with terror, suffocating, she was forced to swallow, and still he held her.

  A violent spasm wracked her body. Her back arched, her face contorted. Mercilessly he held her there until she was still, an aroma of almonds came up to him as her mouth opened in a dreadful, twisted grin.

  Now he stood back.

  He took out a white handkerchief and wiped it across his moist forehead. He was breathing easily. The small, dull bits of slate that were his eyes had not altered their expression by a flicker. His shadowed glance went round the room, looking for any signs of a struggle. He righted a chair that had been pushed aside. He did not look again at the arched, twisted figure on the divan.

  Nodding to himself in satisfaction he moved lightly to the door through which he had appeared. He closed the door after him, stepping out into the dark, tiny passage through to the kitchen.

  He paused for a while, to accustom his eyes to the darkness as he made his way to the door at the back of the cottage.

  Then he stiffened, every muscle tensed. He felt sure he had heard the creak of the front gate. Yes, those were footsteps on the path outside the front door. He heard a low, cheerful whistle. He cursed softly. Who was it who had to show up at this moment? Was it some friend of the dead girl?

  Soft-footed, he continued across the kitchen, and in the darkness reached the back door, unlatching it quietly even as he heard the knocking on the front door. T
he knocking was repeated. He stood there, the door held open a little.

  He shut the door quietly behind, letting the latch slip soundlessly into place. Then, a swift shadow he darted to the shelter of a bush in the dark garden. The knocking sounded yet again as he waited.

  Would the newcomer go into the cottage, to find the girl so soon?

  Tensely the man in the dark trilby stood there. He heard the whistling again, then the footsteps crunched away, he heard the front gate open and click shut.

  He moved round the corner of the cottage and glimpsed a figure silhouetted against the lane, and pausing to tinker with the bicycle he wheeled from beside the gate. He watched the figure mount the bicycle and saw its wavering light as he pedalled away.

  Relaxing, the man waited.

  He was in no hurry, he wanted to make sure no one saw him quit the place. Nobody had seen him arrive, he was certain of that. No need to spoil things by bumping into some fool on his way out. He gave it some little time before he turned back and moved across the garden and was lost in the blackness of the copse.

  Presently there came the sound of a car starting up in the road on the other side of the copse. A cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth the man in the dark trilby peered along the beam of the car’s headlights that probed the darkness.

  As he let in the clutch he caught a flicker of lightning on the darkening horizon. He drove along the road until he came to the cross-roads and he took the turning for London.

  He fancied he saw another lightning flicker to his left and he licked his lips nervously and stepped on the accelerator. If he made it snappy he might dodge the thunderstorm, get back before it broke.

  He was terrified of thunderstorms, and the prospect of being caught in one in the car made him feel sick to his stomach.

  Chapter Two

  Phil Stone made Waterloo about ten minutes before the 6.45 was due to depart. Thankfully, he noted it was not very crowded as he walked down the platform, carrying his battered leather suitcase. He found no difficulty in securing a third-class smoking-compartment to himself.

  It had been quite a day since he arrived at London Airport, and he did not wish to endure the discomfort of a crowded carriage. Hoping his solitude would remain undisturbed he lifted his suitcase on to the rack and sat back in a corner seat.

  He took out a blackened briar pipe from his pocket and a well-worn pouch and filled the bowl automatically as idly he watched the bustle of the platform.

  Above all, he wanted to be alone now, to surrender himself to thoughts of the girl he had journeyed half-way across the world to see.

  His pipe drawing coolly, Phil settled himself stretching out his long legs, and automatically turned the pages of an evening paper he had bought at the bookstall. But his attention was not on the headlines or the news-stories.

  Presently he heard the warning cries of porters, the shrill whistle of the guard, and his carriage began to slide noiselessly forward. An invisible hand slammed his door shut with a jerk of a handle.

  Thank heavens he would be alone to Hatford, anyway. He would have to change there for Little Tiplow.

  He sat still glancing unseeingly at his newspaper with his thoughts projected into the near future, when he would be with the one he wanted to see and be near to more than anything else in the world.

  His face was deeply tanned, his hair bleached by the sun, there was a look of the sea and distances in his clear blue eyes. He was wearing a quiet double-breasted suit and a dark blue knitted tie. There was an essential simplicity and boyish frankness about Phil Stone’s personality. It had remained unaffected by the arduous life he led, among the tough, astonishingly assorted men with whom he worked, in the long days and nights on rolling decks, or the blinding heat of oriental ports.

  Lately his job had kept him in the Far East. Risen to ship’s officer, there was the rewarding prospect of a master’s ticket, if he decided to remain at sea.

  This was his first home leave for over a year. A year it was since he had last seen Julie. He sighed, his thoughts went back to that visit to London, and the sudden, unexpected delight it had brought him.

  During his voyages the colourful, hot and spice-laden glamour of the islands of the East had woven their spell about him. The rich green of those places of the South Pacific and the Coral Sea set like jewels against brilliant blue skies had held him with a powerful appeal. There was a deeply romantic side to his nature which, when with other people he would contrive to conceal beneath a pose of cynical experience.

  But the appeal of the East had faded a little after he had met Julie Grayson. Smiling to himself, Phil put the newspaper to one side and as the train rushed onwards, he allowed his thoughts to dwell on the figure in the photograph which he took from his wallet. It had travelled with him across many tropical seas.

  The photograph had been taken at a rehearsal. She was in practice-clothes, which showed her long, shapely legs and slim figure. She had been caught in a gay mood, her large brown eyes alight, her mouth was smiling.

  Why, he wondered idly, had he fallen for the younger sister of the two? Thelma, five years older, beautiful in a more classic way, was tall and graceful, more serene than her volatile sister; the stronger character. Phil suspected she sometimes had a hard task to curb Julie’s high spirits.

  Both their parents were dead, and ever since they had left school, early in their teens they had worked as dancers in London shows and night-clubs. They enjoyed the life, with its ups and downs, its excitement and gaiety, and coping with its dull patches of being out-of-work, its depressing set-backs with the typical philosophy of people in show-business.

  Neither of them fancied that they were particularly talented, they could dance well enough, they could sing enough to find their way through the trite chorus of a popular song; they both possessed personality and tremendous charm, they were quick-witted and amusing conversationalists. Nor were they hard or tough. That had surprised Phil most of all, their warm-heartedness, surprised him and attracted him.

  He had met them at a cocktail-party given by a mutual friend, and he had been to see them in the show in which they were appearing at a big, popular night-spot.

  There had followed that deliriously happy week in London, at the end of which he had become sure Julie, it was Julie he had fallen for from the moment he looked into her brown, amused eyes, was fond of him.

  His leave over, he was off again, but he had written to her and she had written back and written again, and her letters had been warm and filled him with hope that they were meant for each other. Then had come the news that she had gone to work on her own in another night-club. From the hints she gave him in her letters, he did not like her new background, it did not seem to him that the move had been for the better; and maybe it had been his comments to this effect that had made her subsequent letters seem a little cooler and their arrival certainly less frequent.

  When several hours earlier, Phil had reached London Airport, his contract ended, a few weeks’ leave ahead before he signed a new one, he had gone to the tiny flat Thelma and Julie shared in Charlotte Street. Thelma had seemed delighted to see him, but there was no Julie. She had gone down to the little cottage in Hampshire, which had been left them by their parents and which, despite the ups-and-downs of their profession they had hung on to.

  And so now he was on this train rushing through misty fields lying beneath the hazy sky of the September evening.

  Phil glanced at his wrist-watch. Twenty minutes past seven. An hour-and-a-half and he would be at Hatford, and waiting impatiently for the local to take him to Little Tiplow.

  Soon after he would see the lovely face that had filled his dreams all these long months, listen to her soft voice and amusing laugh. Would be glimpse in the lustrous depths of her dark-lashed eyes a promise he so longed to find waiting there? His heart beat more quickly at the thought.

  It had been bad luck being delayed in London.

  He might have caught a much earlier train
, but there had been the fixing up of his rooms off Baker Street, recommended by a fellow-officer. The landlady had been out, and he’d had to go away and kill an hour or more before he had gone back and obtained the large bed-sitting room he wanted.

  A call at the offices of the shipping-line he had served, a long wait there and then a long interview and then the visit to Charlotte Street. He hadn’t rushed it. He had fully anticipated that Julie would be with Thelma at the flat. He had stored up the sight of her face as he arrived on the scene. He could not keep the mischievous smile from the corners of his mouth as he rang the bell.

  But the smile had soon been wiped off his face. Julie had not answered the bell. It was Thelma, Julie wasn’t there.

  The recollection of his talk with Thelma brought a frown to his sunburned face. His eyes were unseeing as he gazed out at the flashing scene. Had there been a suspicion of something wrong? Had there been something a little edgy in Thelma’s manner?

  He thought of her long grey eyes, the dark hair, almost black with its marvellous sheen, her cool, controlled voice.

  Was he wrong in sensing that her surprise and delight on seeing him there on the threshold had been tinged with doubt and anxiety? Her welcome had been warm and cordial enough, when she opened the door to him.

  ‘Why, Phil. How wonderful to see you.’

  He had gone in, looking for Julie.

  ‘Don’t be disappointed,’ Thelma had said with a smile. ‘She’s not here.’ And then she had hesitated, only for a second. ‘She’s . . . fine,’ she had said in answer to his question. ‘She’s gone down to the cottage.’

  Relaxing in the rather worn arm-chair, Phil looked around the room, very feminine, gay with flowers. From the kitchenette, as she heard the chair creak, Thelma had called out:

  ‘Mind that chair, Phil. We bought it at the junk-shop round the corner. I don’t know that it will stand up to hefty young sailor types.’

  She came in presently with the tray, her grey eyes studying him, she looked cool in a blouse and neat black skirt.