Comes the Dark Stranger - Jack Higgins [56]
Faulkner sighed. ‘That was Steele’s mistake, I’m afraid. It made him feel big to give Wilby a job for old time’s sake when he came whining, cap in hand.’
‘Presumably he discovered your secret?’
Faulkner nodded. ‘He overheard us talking in Steele’s office one evening. It was easy enough to keep his mouth shut. In the first place, he was frightened to death of me and in the second, he was perfectly happy as long as he had enough money to get drunk on. Unfortunately the picture changed for the worse when you appeared on the scene.’
‘You put him in that gas oven?’ Shane said.
Faulkner nodded tranquilly. ‘All of a sudden he was more afraid of you than he was of me. He wrote me a letter in which he said he couldn’t stand it any more. He was going to tell you everything. I went to his house prepared to offer him a bribe large enough to keep his mouth shut until I’d managed to get rid of you one way or another.’
‘And what went wrong?’ Shane said.
Faulkner shrugged. ‘I found him drunk in the kitchen. It was too good an opportunity to miss. I dragged him across to the gas oven and put his head inside.’
‘But how did you manage the suicide note?’ Shane asked.
Faulkner smiled. ‘The final touch of artistry, I left the second page of the letter he had written to me. It looked like a brief note and in it, he referred to you quite damningly.’
‘And all the other things,’ Shane said. ‘The footsteps and the incident in the fog when I saw Laura going into that hotel? You were behind them all?’
‘The club foot seemed a nice touch,’ Faulkner said. ‘After all you appeared to have Colonel Li on the brain and there was no need to kill you. You were going to die anyway. I thought that if I could make you think your reason was going you might leave.’
‘But how about that business at the hotel when Laura vanished?’
‘I didn’t want her visiting my house in case you happened to drop by unexpectedly,’ Faulkner said. ‘I arranged to meet her at that hotel. I was watching from the window and saw you following her. I phoned down to the desk and told the hall porter exactly what to do. I said we were having an affair and you were a nosy private detective employed by the husband.’
‘That still doesn’t explain the phone call I made to her house.’
Faulkner chuckled. ‘But you didn’t make the phone call - the hall porter dialled the number for you. In actual fact he connected you to the room upstairs where we were meeting.’
Everything had dropped neatly into place, but the picture was still incomplete. Shane said slowly, ‘And what about Jenny? Why did you have to kill her?’
Faulkner shrugged. ‘But surely that’s obvious? I wanted rid of you once and for all. After you left Steele at Hampton he managed to call me from a public phone box on the main road. He told me you were going to the club to get that envelope from the safe and he told me what was in it. Not letters from Laura to him as she had told you, but the truth about me. A few minutes later Laura phoned to tell me the same thing. She said that she’d managed to delay you at the house. She wanted me to get to that envelope before you could open it.’
There was no hurt in the knowledge, only a certain sadness and something suspiciously like regret. Shane swallowed hard and said slowly, ‘I see.’
Faulkner shook his head. ‘No, you don’t see at all, Martin. I knew Laura had fallen for you pretty heavily, but stronger than that was her desperate resolve to see that the truth about me was never revealed. She knew it would kill my father.’
‘But none of this explains why you killed Jenny,’ Shane said.
‘After I’d clubbed you down in the alley, I realized that you’d make for the girl’s flat and then I suddenly thought of a way in which I could get rid of you once and for all. You’d been in an institution for years and several people knew of your obsession that one of your comrades had been a traitor in Korea. You’d even been publicly rebuked by the coroner at Wilby’s inquest. All I had to do was to get to the flat before you, murder the girl and club you down when you came in.’
‘But you didn