Comes the Dark Stranger by Jack Higgins Page B

wholesale clothing warehouse on one side and an alley on the other. He walked along a narrow, carpetless passage until he came to a door. It refused to open and he knocked.
    A tiny grill opened and a pair of hard eyes stared out at him. ‘Membership card, please,’ a voice said roughly.
    Shane shook his head. ‘I haven’t got one. I’m a friend of Mr Steele’s.’
    The grill shut and the door opened at once. The man was wearing a greasy dinner jacket and soiled white cricket shirt. His black bow-tie was of the press-stud variety. ‘If the boss told you to come, then I guess that’s all right,’ he said. ‘Sign the book, please.’
    Shane leaned over the battered desk. He hesitated for a moment, and then wrote ‘Raymond Hunt’ with a flourish. ‘Has Mr Steele been in yet?’ he asked as he laid down the pen.
    ‘Not yet, sir,’ he man said. ‘That’ll be ten shillings membership fee, please.’ Shane gave him a pound note and told him to keep it. The man grinned, exposing green-encrusted stumps. ‘I’ll bring you your membership card at the bar, sir,’ he said, and moved into his tiny office.
    Shane went through a door at the far end of the passage and found himself standing at the top of a short flight of steps. The dance floor was below, ringed by tables tightly packed together. A four-piece band on a tiny rostrum was doing its best to blow the roof off. He descended the steps and went across to the bar in the corner.
    The room was far from crowded, and there seemed to be more women than men. He sat on a tall stool in a corner of the bar, his back against the wall. The barman was bending over the sink rinsing a glass, and when he straightened up Shane saw to his surprise that it was Joe Wilby.
    An expression of astonishment appeared on Wilby’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a scowl. He came forward and leaned across the bar. ‘Who the hell told you I worked here?’ he demanded. ‘Was it Bella?’
    ‘I didn’t need any help,’ Shane told him. ‘I just followed my nose.’
    Wilby’s great hands gripped the edge of the bar convulsively, and Shane went on, ‘By the way, I met a friend of yours this afternoon. He asked me to give you a message. Said he’d had a slight accident and wouldn’t be able to collect on that fiver after all.’
    Wilby’s face seemed to turn purple, and murder shone in his eyes, ‘All right, you clever sod. You’ll get yours soon enough.’
    Shane lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke into Wilby’s face. ‘Now you’re really frightening me.’ He smiled contemptuously. ‘Get me a beer before I forget myself.’
    Wilby brought the drink without another word, and went and stood at the far end of the bar and polished glasses, a scowl on his face. After a moment he seemed to come to a sudden decision. He lifted the flap at the end of the bar, pushed his way through the crowd and disappeared through the entrance.
    Shane frowned slightly, wondering what the big man was up to, and then he shrugged and turned to examine the other patrons. Most of the women were obvious prostitutes, heavily made-up, and wearing dresses that stayed just within the bounds of decency.
    There was a thin sprinkling of the fat and balding type of commercial traveller, on the loose in a strange town and determined to have his own peculiar version of what constituted a good time. On the whole the men were a rough lot, mostly small-time crooks and backstreet toughs from the look of them, all sporting the usual extremes in dress.
    There was no sign of Reggie Steele, and as Shane raised his glass to swallow the rest of his beer he became aware of a young woman at his side. She was holding an unlit cigarette in one hand, and looked at him tentatively. He grinned and held out a match for her.
    Underneath the make-up she was hardly more than a girl, and there was a certain animal attractiveness about her firm young body. At that moment Wilby shouldered his way through the crowd and went back