Free Bluebolt One by Philip McCutchan Page B

now.” Shaw looked at his watch. “We’ll eat afterwards, somewhere in Chelsea.”

    They rang one of the bells at the top of the steps in the Oakley Street house, the bell with a small white card alongside it with the name: Miss G. Ross . After a second ring, they heard footsteps, and the door was opened by *a tall, dark-haired girl of little more than twenty, dressed in a tightly moulded sweater and tartan trews whose folds left very little to the imagination. She was undoubtedly, as Jiddle had said, a ‘good-looker’; but she was showing the strain of recent events and she was pale and nervy-looking, with large dark rings under her eyes. Shaw introduced himself.
    She was suspicious and wary at first, but when Shaw mentioned Patrick MacNamara and the fact that he had been on that train with him, she seemed to soften a little—she would, Shaw knew, have read all the papers. Glancing at Debonnair, she said, “Oh, all right then, come along up. The room’s a bit untidy.”
    She turned away. An attractive perfume wafted back as they followed her in and up the stairs which rose steeply from the end of the hall. The long, trousered legs went up quickly, past the first landing and up to the next, beyond that again to the very top of the building, to where the stairs were even steeper and narrower and covered with lino instead of carpeting. She led them into a tiny, jazzily furnished apartment with a sloping, garret-like ceiling and an unmade divan bed in one corner. A door led off into a poky kitchen, like a cupboard. Gillian Ross jerked the door of the kitchen shut with her foot and then jabbed at some cushions in the chairs, pushing them straight.
    She said abruptly, “Sit down, won’t you. I think I need a drink. What about you?”
    Debonnair shook her head and Shaw said, “Not just now, thanks, but don’t let us stop you.”
    “All right.” She picked up a bottle and splashed gin into a glass. Shaw watched her curiously. She was young to be starting this sort of carry-on, he thought, and she looked as though she had a decent background somewhere. She had an almost patrician air, with her straight brows and firm, determined chin, and this didn’t quite fit with the jazzy room, and the gin, with the whole untidy, slack bachelor-girl existence which, by first appearance anyhow, seemed to be her life.
    When she’d poured the gin she lit a tipped cigarette, took a deep lungful of smoke, and said, “Well? You’d better explain, hadn’t you? How did you know my address—and how did you know about Pat and me, anyway?”
    Shaw dodged those two direct questions, but apart from that he explained as fully as he could. He said, “I happen to be a—Government agent, Miss Ross, though nothing whatever to do with the police. We have reason to believe that MacNamara may be able to help us quite a lot in certain inquiries which we’re making. In turn, I’m quite sure we can help him. You see, I was a witness to some of what happened in the train.”
    “D’you think he did it—that murder?” The girl’s voice was higher, brittle, and Shaw noted the way her fingers tightened round her glass.
    He said, “For what my opinion’s worth—no, I don’t. That’s one of the reasons I want to help, to find out more than I know already. Only MacNamara can tell me anything.”
    She nodded, seeming to consider what he had said. Then she asked, “Is Pat in danger? I mean, will some one try to get at him?”
    Shaw studied her set, drawn face obliquely. “Not necessarily. It could be that he’s simply being hidden by some one. On the other hand—yes, he might be in danger. Can you tell me where I can find him?”
    “No,” she said. “No, I can’t. I swear that. I just don’t know. . . I’ve not heard a word from him since—since that happened. You . . . don’t think something could have happened to him already?”
    “That’s something I can’t possibly answer,” he said gravely. “Miss Ross—why do you think