Famine by John Creasey Page A

once a woman’s scream rang out. There was a crash of crockery and a thud of someone falling.
    Palfrey did not see the creature rush out into the street but Jim Baretta, waiting for him, saw it clearly. Baretta ran after it, and was in time to see it streaking across Albemarle Street in front of a fast-moving taxi. There was a crunch of sound, another scream – and then blood gushed from the stricken creature, which lay with its mouth open wide, teeth showing, its body smashed.
    Baretta rushed forward, taking off his coat, and flung it over the hideous sight. But the rumour began.
    â€œIt was a dwarf.”
    â€œA child.”
    â€œA rat.”
    â€œA rabbit.”
    â€œA cat.”
    â€œA dog.”
    â€œA child.”
    â€œA dwarf …”
    â€œGet it to the H.Q. we’ll have Campson look at it in the laboratory,” Palfrey said gruffly, as he reached Baretta in the street. A dozen motorists had stopped, a hundred people gaped, many of them beginning to find their tongues. “All right, Jim?”
    â€œYes. What happened?”
    â€œIt attacked Betty Fordham.”
    â€œIs she hurt?”
    Palfrey said: “I don’t know.” He turned on his heel, leaving Baretta to take charge, his heart dropping sickeningly at the thought of what might have happened to Betty Fordham. He had rushed after the creature and that had been the priority, but he wished it had been possible to help the woman – if she was not already beyond help. How could she have survived those two attacks; how could the flimsy material of her scarf have saved her flesh from those cruel talons? He knew that it could not have done.
    No one in the hotel took any notice of him; only a porter appeared to have seen what happened, and he was busy with a taxi and a mountain of luggage. Palfrey went stoically up the stairs, and turned the passage expecting to see Betty crumpled up on the floor, dying, if not already dead.
    She was by the open door of the room to which he had taken her, smiling faintly.
    â€œHallo,” she said.
    â€œBut—your neck.” He felt and sounded breathless.
    â€œI was protected,” she told him, brushing aside the tatters of her scarf. Beneath was a wide silver necklet, a piece of costume jewellery heavily inlaid with semi-precious stones. “You did warn me.”
    â€œAh.” He drew his hand across his forehead, and it came away wet. “So I did.”
    â€œYou didn’t take your own advice,” Betty said.
    â€œI should have.”
    â€œCertainly you should.”
    â€œI will in future.”
    â€œYes,” Betty said severely. “I hope someone will keep you up to that.” She turned into the room. “A waiter brought breakfast and left it on a hotplate. I don’t think the coffee’s too cold.”
    Palfrey asked: “What happened to the man who fell over the thing?”
    â€œHe thought it was a cat.”
    â€œAnd you let him go on thinking that?”
    â€œIt seemed the best thing to do,” Betty Fordham said practically.
    The words of a song, old and once popular, passed through Palfrey’s mind. Cool, Calm and Collected. No one could have been cooler, calmer or more composed than this woman, who had not yet asked him what had happened downstairs. He sat down at one side of a table laid for breakfast, and motioned towards the coffee pot. She poured out two cups.
    â€œSugar?”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    â€œIt steadies the nerves.”
    â€œWhy would you need to know about that?” asked Palfrey. He sipped the hot coffee, and remembered doing so last night, when Joyce had poured out, and Campson had been so full of alarm, and fear had struck deep. Why did he feel calm now? “So you came prepared.”
    â€œYes,” she said simply.
    â€œWeren’t you frightened?”
    â€œOnly for a moment. It wouldn’t stop me going along the passage expecting to see another