Fear is the Key

"No." He broke open the Colt with his left hand, ejected the remaining shell, closed the gun and with a careless flick of his wrist sent it spinning ten feet to land smack in the waste paper basket. He looked at if he could do this sort of thing ten times out of ten, everything this man tried would always come off: if he was as good as this with his left hand, what could he do with his right? "I'd never seen you before this afternoon, I'd never even heard of you when first I saw you in the lot," he continued. "But I'd seen and heard of this young lady here a hundred times. You're a Limey, or you'd have heard of her too. Maybe you have, but don't know who you got there, you wouldn't be the first person to be fooled by her. No make-up, no accent, hair in kid's plaits. And you only look and behave like that either if you've given up competing — or if there's no one left to compete against." He looked at the girl and smiled again. "For Mary Blair Ruthven there's no competition left. When you're as socially acceptable as she is, and your old man is who he is, then you can dispense with your Bryn Mawr accent and the Antonio hairdo. That's for those who need them."

"And her old man?"

"Such ignorance. Blair Ruthven. General Blair Ruthven. You've heard of the Four Hundred — well, he's the guy that keeps the register. You've heard of the Mayflower — it was old Ruthven's ancestors who gave the Pilgrims permission to land. And, excepting maybe Paul Getty, he's the richest oil man in the United States."

I made no comment, there didn't seem to be any that would meet the case. I wondered what he'd say if I told him of my pipe-dream of slippers, a fire and a multi-million heiress. Instead I said: "And you had your radio switched on in the parking-lot. I hear it. And then a news flash."

"That's it," he agreed cheerfully.

"Who are you?" It was Mary Blair speaking for the first time since he'd entered and that was what being in the top 1 per cent of the Four Hundred did for you. You didn't swoon, you didn't murmur "Thank God" in a broken voice, you didn't burst into tears and fling your arms round your rescuer's neck, you just gave him a nice friendly smile which showed he was your equal even if you know quite well he wasn't and said: "Who are you?"

"Jablonsky, miss. Herman Jablonsky."

"I suppose you came over in the Mayflower too," I said sourly. I looked consideringly at the girl. "Millions and millions of dollars, eh? That's a lot of money to be walking around. Anyway, that explains away Valentino."

"Valentino?" You could see she still thought I was crazy.

"The broken-faced gorilla behind you in the court-room If your old man shows as much judgment in picking oil-wells as he does in picking bodyguards, you're going to be on relief pretty soon."

"He's not my usual-" She bit her lip, and something like a shadow of pain touched those clear grey eyes. "Mr. Jablonsky, I owe you a great deal."

Jablonsky smiled again and said nothing. He fished out a pack of cigarettes, tapped the bottom, extracted one with his teeth, bent back a cardboard match in a paper folder, then threw cigarettes and matches across to me. That's how the high-class boys operated to-day. Civilised, courteous, observing all the little niceties, they'd have made the hoodlums of the thirties feel slightly ill. Which made a man like Jablonsky all the more dangerous: like an iceberg, seven-eighths of his lethal menace was out of sight. The old-time hoodlums couldn't even have begun to cope with him.

"I take it you are prepared to use that gun," Mary Blair went on. She wasn't as cool and composed as she appeared and sounded; I could see a pulse beating in her neck and it was going like a racing car. "I mean, this man can't do anything to me now?"

"Nary a thing," Jablonsky assured her.

"Thank you." A little sigh escaped her, as if it wasn't until that moment that she really believed her terror was over, that there was nothing more to fear. She moved across the room. "I'll phone the police."

"No," Jablonsky said quietly.

She broke step. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said 'No'," Jablonsky murmured. "No phone, no police, I think we'll leave the law out of it."

"What on earth do you mean?" Again I could see a couple of red spots burning high up in her cheeks. The last time I'd seen those it had been fear that had put them there, this time it looked like the first stirrings of anger. When your old man had lost count of the number of oil-wells he owned, people didn't cross your path very often. "We must have the police," she went on, speaking slowly and patiently like someone explaining something to a child. "This man is a criminal. A wanted criminal. And a murderer. He killed a man in London."

"And in Marble Springs," Jablonsky said quietly. "Patrolman Donnelly died at five-forty this afternoon."

"Donnelly — died?" Her voice was a whisper. "Are you sure?"

"Six o'clock news-cast. Got it just before I tailed you out of the parking-lot. Surgeons, transfusions, the lot. He died."