Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [59]
“I was wearing a breastplate,” said Ailsa.
“You are sharper than I am. I’ll come straight back. Meanwhile, you will find a negative and a photograph in the safe.
They are in an envelope. Do not look at them. I do not want the police to see them. Please call Phil Marshall and tell him to come and pick them up. The police did not find them, did they?”
“No, I told them he had no time to take anything.”
“Go home, Miss Bridge. I shall go directly to Scotland Yard.”
Harry was ushered in to see Kerridge. “This is a bad business,” he said. “The chap who tried to kill your secretary is an unsavoury character called John Finch. He says he was hired by Lord Berrow, furnished with a gun, told to kill you if necessary and to get a negative out of your safe. We sent a man back and he retrieved the negative. It was nothing but a negative and photograph of a saucy lady in the altogether. Miss Bridge said a client of yours had paid you to get the negative and photo back. She said Berrow knew of the photograph and might use it to ruin her reputation.”
Oh, excellent Miss Bridge, thought Harry.
“That is true. I never thought Berrow would go to such extremes. Furthermore I cannot, of course, give you the name of the lady. She has done nothing criminal. What are you doing about Berrow?”
“The police commissioner in York is going out to his estate to arrest him personally.”
Oh, the magic of a title. If Lord Berrow had been Mr. Bloggs of nowhere, the police would have pounced without warning. But the police commissioner made the mistake of phoning Berrow first and saying he was coming to see him on a grave matter and bringing the chief constable with him.
Berrow rushed to find Cyril, who was potting balls in the billiard-room. Cyril had highly approved of the plot to hire Finch.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “The game’s up.” He told Cyril about the impending visit of the police commissioner and the chief constable.
“What’ll we do?”
“Get out the bloody country, that’s what!”
NINE
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
—SAMUEL BUTLER
Berrow and Cyril fled as far as Glasgow. Scottish law was different from English law, so surely, they felt, they would feel safe for a while.
They booked into the Central Hotel beside the railway station, sharing a suite and calling themselves the brothers Richmond.
“I say,” said Cyril moodily, looking at their great pile of luggage, “we are drawing attention to ourselves with all this stuff. We had to employ a squad of porters to get the few yards round from the station. And I’m sick of this disguise. It’s hot.” Like Berrow, Cyril was sporting a false beard. They had managed to work their way north by means of several branch railway lines before they arrived tired and weary in Glasgow.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Berrow. “You know that big motor car Cathcart has?”
“What about it?”
“We could get something like that. It would take us and all the luggage. We could then make our way by country roads to Stranraer, get over to Ireland. Great place to hide out, Ireland.”
Both had taken with them a considerable amount of money and valuables. The timely warning call from the police had also enabled them to transfer their accounts to a Swiss bank.
“Good idea,” said Cyril.
That evening, they inquired at the reception desk for the whereabouts of a motor car salesroom and got directions to a large one in Giffnock.
The following morning, they set out. Pride of the salesroom display was a Rolls-Royce, and Berrow decided that it would be ideal. He paid cash, to the delight of the salesman, who then discovered that neither knew how to drive.
Cyril was taken out on the road for a lesson. After two hours, he decided he knew how to start up and go forward. So long as he was not expected to reverse, he felt he could manage pretty well. They returned to the centre of the city and bought leather motoring coats, leather hats and