One Way Out. John Russell Fearn

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      “As a matter of fact I’ve bought a house,” Lee said. “I thought you might be interested.”

      “Interested?” Dale repeated vaguely. “Why yes, of course I am. Where is it exactly?”

      “It’s in a high class part of London. The wife thinks it’s beautiful, and so do I. It will save me a great deal of time in getting to the office.”

      “Good! Congratulations, Lee. You must have saved pretty hard to enable you to do a thing like that.”

      Lee smiled. “As a matter of fact it’s going to cost around five thousand pounds.”

      “Really? That’s a lot of money, Lee. What happened? Did you come into a legacy, or something?”

      “No; nothing like that. The house isn’t paid for yet, but it will have to be by noon tomorrow, or I won’t get it. And that would be a big disappointment.”

      “Yes, of course it would. But where are you going to get that kind of money? Five thousand pounds doesn’t grow on trees. Frankly, what possessed you to embark on such a fantastic scheme when you knew you couldn’t afford it?”

      “But I can, Mr. Dale—or, to be more exact, you can.”

      Dale threw down his pen on the rack. The vagueness had left his face and the normal bulldog look had returned. He impaled Lee with cold grey eyes,

      “I can? What the devil do you mean by that?”

      “It has been said, rather truthfully I think, that the labourer is worthy of his hire.... I’m the labourer.”

      “What the hell are you talking about?”

      Lee pulled up a chair and sat down indolently, a thing he had never done before in his employer’s office.

      “I’m talking about Janice Elton, who was thrown from the Scots Express. I’m your right-hand man, the only man who can swear you never left my side during the time she died, In a word, I’m your only hope between freedom and a hangman’s rope.”

      “Stop talking like a melodramatic idiot!”

      “Melodrama isn’t intended, Mr. Dale—only facts.” Lee grinned irritatingly. “Those facts have the unfortunate habit of staring one in the face—”

      “Now look here, you needn’t start trying to intimidate me, Lee. I’m not the sort you can easily frighten. Even if the police get this far—which I doubt—you can’t nail me down for anything. The ‘reasonable doubt’, remember? You said so yourself.”

      “I know, but if I am forced to be unpleasant—which I don’t want to be—the police may discover Janice’s handbag, the note inside it—minus the envelope now, unfortunately—and even the empty bottle of strychnine. You’ll have your hands full explaining those away, particularly the bottle with your prints all over it, and hers when she struggled to stop you.”

      “When she what?”

      Dale sat like an image for a moment, somehow unable to credit that the words were coming from his meek and mild head clerk,

      “You see,” Lee continued, “I didn’t really put the bottle in Janice’s hand. You couldn’t really see what I was doing because I told you to go and get the door open—and I tucked her ‘bottle hand’ out of sight inside her jacket when we carried her.... I felt that the bottle might be a good lever later on, and I guessed right. And I didn’t destroy her handbag either. I still have it intact, Forgive me if I don’t say where.”

      “So that’s your game!” Dale said at last, taking a deep breath. “Well, I’ll admit one thing, I would never have thought you deep enough to try anything so dangerous as blackmail. For that’s what it is! You realize that?”

      “Of course—but I prefer ‘business arrangement’. It doesn’t sound quite so odious.”

      “And you know what happens to blackmailers, don’t you?”

      “Certainly I do. I’ve examined the situation thoroughly, and I have decided that in this case it’s a reasonable risk. If you are silly enough to tell the police about me you’ll also have to tell them about Janice—and explain away the evidence, which I’ll produce. No doubt I’ll suffer, but not half as much as you will. On the other hand, for five thousand pounds you can have peace and....” Lee lighted a cigarette. “Peace and my unswerving loyalty.”

      Dale got up suddenly. He came round the desk in two strides, gripped Lee by the lapels of his jacket and hauled him out of his chair. His cigarette spilled to the carpet.

      “Now listen to me,” Dale breathed, pinning him to the wall. “I’m not being a party to your demands, and what’s more I’m going to give you something for your trouble. I’ll—”

      There was a tap on the door. With an effort Lee called, “Come in.”

      Perforce Dale had to release his hold, and Lee took good care to place a reasonable distance between himself and his employer. He remained grimly passive as a girl clerk came in, a letter in her hand.

      “For you to sign, Mr. Dale. That letter to Phillips.”

      “Eh?” Dale looked at her as though he wondered who she was.

      “Oh, yes! The letter to Phillips. Thanks.”

      The girl gave a vaguely puzzled glance from one to the other and then went out again and closed the door. Lee moved forward, recovered his smouldering cigarette from the carpet, and crushed it in the ashtray. In stony calmness he looked at Dale as he pinched finger and thumb to his eyes.

      “The little exercise in primitive emotions being over, Mr. Dale, let me underline what I’ve said. I want five thousand pounds by tomorrow morning at the latest—and I don’t want a cheque. Give me that, and you have a guarantor for your movements when Janice Elton died.”

      “From the way you talk,” Dale snapped, “one would think I really did murder her.”

      “There’s only your word for it that you didn’t, isn’t there? Of course, if you prefer to do battle with the law when it catches up instead of giving me a cent, that’s up to you—but I’ll make it very hard for you, Mr. Dale, Very hard.”

      Dale moved to the desk and sat down heavily. He sat looking at Lee fixedly for a moment before he spoke.

      “The thing to do at this moment, Lee, is ask a question—the same question that all victims ask the blackmailer. How do I know you’ll keep to your side of the bargain if I pay you five thousand pounds?”

      Lee grinned. “You don’t know I will: you’ll have to trust me, just as you’ve done for the last twenty years.”

      “Trust you! What an idiot you must think I am! No, Lee, it won’t work. Whatever the consequences I’m going to report your behaviour to the police. Now get out, before I kick your miserable hide through that doorway!”

      “Obviously, you haven’t weighed up every angle,” Lee sighed. “On what grounds are you going to report me to the police? СКАЧАТЬ