Free Inspector West Takes Charge by John Creasey

house or to have employed anyone to do it. I am working for men who will not take personal risks. They work through me. The prize was big and I took the chance. A great deal has gone wrong, but we can put it right, if we keep our heads.’ He paused for a moment, and then said abruptly: ‘We will have a rehearsal. What is your name?’
    Duke leaned back in his chair.
    ‘Harrington. William Ellsworth Harrington.’
    ‘When were you born?’
    ‘January 30 1908.’
    ‘Where were you born?’
    ‘19 Hemsley Road, Harrogate. Yorkshire.’
    ‘What was your mother’s maiden name?’
    ‘Prendergast, Emily Joanna. And I can do the rest without being prompted,’ Duke went on. ‘My father was William Ellsworth Harrington the first. He was a gentleman-farmer, too much gentleman and too little farmer. He died in 1914, in France. My mother died in 1918, from the Asian influenza. I was brought up by an adopted aunt who made plenty of profit, my mother having left her all she’d got a couple of thousand pounds or so. I escaped from auntie’s loving care in August 1924, after leaving Harrogate Grammar School where I’d gone with a scholarship from Towngate Road School. I emigrated to South Africa, got tired of oranges and lemons and skipped it to Singapore, where I got tired of selling phoney jewellery to tourists. I had a dab at rubber-planting in Borneo and later in South Malaya. I got ideas about rubber and developed them, but was swindled out of my patents. I took a freighter to San Francisco, where I had some new ideas, and made a pile. I came back to England because of the war and joined the Navy.’
    ‘Why did you join the Navy?’
    ‘I guess I liked salt water. I gave my name as Duke Conroy because I didn’t want to let my family get in touch with me, and also because when I jumped Johore State my employers didn’t like it and set the police after me. I thought I was wise to be incognito. I was torpedoed in the South Atlantic and badly smashed up. I still can’t walk properly and I’m hoping English surgeons will be able to improve on the first sawbones. That’s the story,’ Duke finished, ‘but I’m telling you that –’
    ‘I will not have you –’
    ‘You sit back and listen,’ Duke said roughly. ‘I’m dumb but not so dumb. Maybe we could have put that line over if Harrington had been bumped off before Lessing and West learned about him, but since Claude Prendergast has gabbed, it’s all through. I’m not going on with it.’
    ‘You will go on with it,’ Potter said, ‘or the police will learn that before you became “Harrington” in South Africa you committed two murders in Southern Rhodesia. But we need not discuss that. Lessing and West know someone who calls himself Harrington, and part of his story. What of it? When Harrington’s dead, there will be plenty of evidence that he is not the real son of Emily Joanna Harrington, wife of the late William Ellsworth, daughter of the late Septimus Prendergast. Harrington’s identity will be discredited, and yours established.’
    ‘I tell you it won’t work. West won’t believe it, and –’
    ‘West will have to consider the evidence,’ said Potter. ‘I have the necessary documents proving that you are the genuine Harrington, and others proving that the Harrington now at Delaware is a fraud. Leave the legal side of this to me.’
    ‘Like hell I will. What’s Harrington going to be dumb all the time? Won’t he spill his yarn to Lessing tonight? Even if he doesn’t, what will the police do if he’s killed?’
    ‘When we get to Harrington he is not going to be killed, he is going to commit suicide. He will leave the necessary evidence, that, with Abie Fenton and others, he arranged the murders of the Prendergasts. The evidence will be irrefutable, I shall see to that. The police will have their murder theory vindicated, and a dead murderer with a motive which stands up. Meanwhile, I shall have found you.’
    Duke drew a deep