Hell Is Too Crowded

(10)

Miklos Davos lived in Mayfair, he got that much from the directory of the first phone booth he came to. When he went back to the car, his hands were still trembling and he lit a cigarette before driving away.

By now the old priest would have got in touch with the police and they would know that he was on the loose in London. Once they had connected the deaths of Jane Gordon, her mother, and Haras, the hunt would be up with a vengeance.

He had only one chance. To get to Davos, to squeeze the truth out of him, because he was the only person left on earth who knew the real facts.

As he took the car expertly through the heavy traffic, he tried to remember what he knew about Davos. It wasn’t very much.

He was of Hungarian extraction, which explained the link-up with Haras. A strange enigmatic figure, he shunned publicity like the plague. It was said that he virtually controlled the oil-supply of the Western world. A ruthless man, an empire-builder who crushed all opposition mercilessly.

Brady’s jaw tightened as he turned the car into a quiet street off Park Lane. Perhaps it was time someone cut Mr. Davos down to size.

The houses were Georgian and beautifully restored. There seemed to be a party going on and parked cars stretched in a line down one side of the street.

Davos lived at number twenty. Brady found space for the car and then mounted the steps to the front door and pressed the bell-push.

He could hear laughter from somewhere inside and music and after a moment or two, there was a protesting curse on the other side of the door and it was flung back with a crash against the wall.

The man who faced him was very drunk. He was wearing a corduroy jacket and fringe beard and his eyes were wet blobs in the pale face.

“Well, if you intend to stand there all night, old man, that suits me fine,” he said cheerfully and turned away.

The corridor was dimly lit by candles. A tremendous hubbub from the far end indicated the vortex of the party although delighted cries and fast beat music sounded from a room on his right as he passed.

He entered the room at the end of the corridor and found himself on the edge of a noisy articulate throng. Everybody seemed to be talking to everybody else at the tops of their voices. The windows were blacked out and the light came from candles stuck into old wine bottles and placed at various strategic points around the room.

Brady was puzzled. This wasn’t the sort of party he would have expected a man like Miklos Davos to give. It took him straight back to the old days, living in Greenwich Village when he was a student at Columbia. The men seemed to have longer hair than the girls and most of them sported beards.

The bar was an improvised affair in one corner and consisted of planks laid across a couple of beer barrels. The barman seemed to be having a hard time keeping up with the demand and Brady helped himself to a beer and moved away.

On the whole, the crowd was an unsavoury bunch and most of them were already drunk and spoiling for mischief. Somebody was trying to stand on his hands on a table and drink a glass of beer at the same time. There was a delighted roar from the crowd as he lost his balance and Brady, turning away, was pushed hard against a young girl, knocking the glass from her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll get you another. What was it?”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’d rather have a cigarette if you’ve got one,” she said.

She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, her face round and unformed and pale with excitement as she looked around her.

He gave her a cigarette and she lit it inexpertly. “Isn’t this marvellous?” she said brightly.

“Just great,” Brady assured her. “Who’s giving the party, anyway?”

Her eyes went round with surprise. “You mean to say you don’t know?”

He grinned. “I just got into town. Some friends of mine were invited so they brought me with them. It all happened in something of a rush.”

“That explains it,” she said. “Lucia’s giving the party. Lucia Davos. Haven’t you ever met her?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve only just got over here from the States.”

“Oh, an American?” The girl smiled. “She’ll like that. If you want to meet her, you’ll find her in the other room singing with the band.”

A hand reached out, grabbed her by the arm and the crowd swallowed her. Brady pushed his way through to the door and went along the corridor to the other room. As he paused in the doorway, a young maid in black-and-white uniform moved past him, her tray piled high with empty glasses. There were dark smudges of fatigue under her eyes and he felt a momentary pang of sympathy as a drunk stumbled against her, sending several glasses tumbling to the floor.

Brady picked them up quickly and replaced them on the tray. “You don’t look too good,” he said. “Can you manage?”

She smiled up at him gratefully. “Don’t worry about me. They’ve had it. I’m going to put my feet up in the kitchen and have a smoke and a cup of tea.”

She turned away and Brady went into the front room. A three-piece combo played softly, but with a beat and a girl sat on the piano, legs crossed, and sang a low, throaty blues.

She didn’t really have much of a voice, but there was something there, a touch of the night, perhaps. A dying fall. The little girl who had been born to everything and had found already that she had nothing.

With her cropped hair and lack of make-up, the slim, boyish figure in the knitted dress looked strangely sexless. When she finished, there was scattered applause and someone shouted, “Another one, Lucia!”

She shook her head. “Maybe later. I need a drink.”

She slid down to the floor and the combo started to play good and loud, the sounds reverberating from the walls. There was a tray of Martinis on a table near the wall and Brady took one and pushed his way towards her.

She was leaning on the piano, beating time with one hand. When he offered her the drink, she turned to thank him, and a slight frown creased her brow. “I don’t know you,” she said.

“I came with a crowd,” he told her. “I like your song. I think you’ve really got something.”

Her eyes were slightly glazed and he knew that she had already had too much to drink. “You an American?” she demanded.

He nodded. “Just got in today.”

She was still frowning, eyeing him up and down. After a moment she said, “I know what’s wrong with you. You are the only man in the room wearing a suit.”

Brady glanced round quickly. The strange thing was that she was right. He stuck out like a sore thumb. “Who did you say you came with?” she demanded.

“Okay, Miss Davos,” he said and shrugged as if giving in. “I suppose I’d better come clean. I was hoping for an interview with your father.”

“A newspaperman.” She swallowed her Martini. “I thought it was something like that. Well, you’re wasting your time. My father never gives interviews. In any case, he’s out of town.”

“Perhaps if you could tell me where he is,” Brady persisted. “He might be willing to make an exception. It would be a real scoop for me.”

She looked straight at him and said in her dry, remote voice, “Look, you’re beginning to bore me. If I were you, I’d finish my drink and leave.”

She turned away as the music lifted to a crescendo and Brady faded into the anonymity of the crowd. He slipped out through the door and moved back into the other room, his mind working desperately. Somehow, he had to find where Davos had gone, but how?

There was a sudden roar and a girl was lifted up on to the bar. Someone started to clap rhythmically and the crowd took it up. The girl was handsome in a bold, sluttish way and obviously very drunk. She started to strip.

There was no great artistry in her performance. She simply took off her clothes as if she was getting ready for bed and threw each article to the delighted crowd. As she started to unfasten her brassiere, Brady turned away. He stood there in the corridor, oblivious to the roar of the crowd, and then he remembered the maid.

It was worth trying and he moved into the side corridor that led to the rear of the house. He opened a door and found himself in a large, well-lighted kitchen.

The maid was sitting in front of the stove, legs stretched out, a cigarette in one hand. She turned in surprise and then a slight smile touched her mouth. “Oh, it’s you. Looking for a cup of tea?”

Brady grinned and lit a cigarette. “I wouldn’t mind. A bit too noisy in there for my liking.”

She filled another cup, added milk and sugar and handed it to him. “To tell you the truth, I thought you didn’t look as if you were enjoying yourself back there.”

He smiled ruefully. “The trouble is, I’m not here to enjoy myself. I’m a newspaper man. My editor told me to get an interview with Miklos Davos or else. That’s why I gate-crashed the party.”

“Mr. Davos at one of his daughter’s parties?” she chuckled. “That’ll be the day. He never gives interviews, anyway.”

“Have you any idea where he is now?”

She nodded. “He went down to the island this morning. Made up his mind just like that. Had us all running round in circles.”

“The island?” Brady said.

“Shayling Island,” she explained. “It’s about two miles off the Essex coast near a fishing village called Harth. He has a house there.”

“What’s it like?” Brady said.

She shuddered. “Gloomy sort of place. I spent a few weeks there last summer when he had guests. It always seemed to be raining.” As Brady put down his cup she got to her feet. “But you’re wasting your time. He won’t see you, even if you go down there.”

“Oh, you never know,” Brady said lightly. “I might catch him on a good day.”

“He never has good days,” she said cryptically.

“Thanks for the tea,” he said, “and the information. You’ve probably saved my job.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” she said and he grinned and closed the door.

By now, the party had really started to fan out and there seemed to be noise and disturbance echoing from every corner of the house. He could still hear it clearly on the night air as he went down the front steps to the car and drove away.

The fog had thickened so that at times, traffic was reduced to a crawl, but it still only took him half an hour to get to that quiet square in Kensington.

He parked the car and went upstairs quickly. When he opened the door, the apartment was in darkness. He stood outside Anne’s door for a moment, listening to her steady breathing before moving into the kitchen.

He felt surprisingly hungry and started to make a bacon-and-egg fry. As he scooped it from the pan to plate, there was a slight noise behind him and he turned to see her standing in the doorway.

She was tightening the cord of a housecoat, her hair straggling across her face, the eyes still swollen and full of sleep.

“Would you like something to eat?” he said.

She shook her head. “Just coffee.”

He poured coffee into a cup for her, strong and black with plenty of sugar and she sat on the opposite side of the table and watched him eat.

All at once, there was an intimacy between them, a definite feeling that this was how it always should be. Brady sensed it and realized that she did also, but it remained unspoken.

She smiled gently. “You look tired.”

“It’s been a hard night,” he said.

“Did you manage to find this Jane Gordon person the Soames woman told you about when we were in the car?”

“I’m afraid I was too late,” he said, “but I found what I needed to know in the end.”

He lit a cigarette and gave her a brief outline of the events of the past few hours. When he had finished, she sat there without saying a word, staring sombrely into space.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I think you should go to the police,” she said. “I think things have gone far enough.”

“But Davos is the one person left on earth who knows the truth,” he said. “Do you think it’s likely he’ll make a confession at this stage?”

She frowned, her fingers twisting together nervously. “But what about the others who’ve been mixed up in this affair? Das and Professor Soames, for examples. The police should be able to get something out of them.”

He shook his head. “Not a chance. Even Soames didn’t know who Jane Gordon was working for. My one hope is to get to Davos, to force him to confess before the police lay me by the heels.”

“And what if he refuses?” she demanded. “What will you do then? Kill him?”

“And why not?” he said bitterly. “If ever a man deserved to die, he does.”

He got to his feet and paced restlessly across the floor. After a moment he turned back to the table. She sat with her head bowed and he pulled her to her feet and held her close in his arms. “I lost control there for a moment. I’m sorry. I’m tired. I suppose we both are. Better go to bed.”

“The man who handled your case before,” she said. “This Inspector Mallory. Couldn’t he do something?”

“He certainly did a hell of a lot for me last time,” Brady said. He led her through the living-room and back into her bedroom. “Now forget about it. We’ll talk it over in the morning.”

“What about you?” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ll manage on the divan in the living-room.”

She got into bed, but her face was still strained and anxious. “You will go to the police, won’t you, Matt?”

“Sure I will.” He leaned down and kissed her.

The last thing he remembered was her smile, warm and wonderful as he switched out the light and gently closed the door.